by Ed Bruce edbrucevegas@yahoo.com
Well sort of ! ! ! !
Cash tribute artist Shawn Barker, two 2 nighters at the Chrome showroom at the Sante Fe Casino in extreme Northeast Las Vegas. Lots to tell here and lots of history.
I continue to be offended by late starting shows, 500 people ready to go at 700,....not this show, how disrespectful to paying customers......this one also covered all three of the big negatives, too late, too dark and too loud. More negatives....I saw Ray Pricve at this venue a few months ago and the sound was absolutely perfect....not tonight ! Impersonating the truly great ones accurately is a world class responsibility.....all of the Beatles impersonators follow the music to a tee, so do the Elvis guys, so do the Sinatra guys but here, Barker, who certainly has the outline and the music to do it..... FAILED. Johnny Cash did not giggle or laugh at himself ! One more negative, Cash drummer, W S Holland sat in as drummer and he was too much of the show, not that he was bad, he wasn't, he was just time and I would rather have seen Barker do Ballad of a Teenage Queen and Five feet high and Rising !
More history, Johnny Cash was one of my early life heroes, I had 31 albums before I went to Viet Nam in 1966. Oddly the movie Walk the Line pretty much covered the 1966 and 1967 years when I was out of the country and the movie covered a lot negative aboutCash, not untrue and o I did like the movie.
The responsibilty to be true to the story is even bigger here because of my personal patronage to Johnny from 1955 on. I would not be fooled. I loved Barker and the music, it brought back lots of history and memories for me.....the production and sound could be much better....again how could Ray Price's sound be so good and this show so less than average? I wanted a lot here and I only got some. Two babes to sing backup with Barker, too loud, a keyboard, 2 guitars and drummer Holland.... all too loud. I have a Cash cd, I played it on the way home with the Cash voice. its great sound, lyrics, all the total package. Barker has been playing this game just 4 years and I like him and his vocie, this theme, with him pretty much solo, has great potential and I am all for some fine tuning and seeing this again. I first saw Cash in the Sioux City auditorium in 1959 something out of the twilight zone never to be repeated and then lastly in Primm 2001.
What great music, Ring of Fire, Get Rhythm, Big River, Darling Companion, Cocaine Blues and 31 albums more.
Boy this was great stuff...they lose 12 points for being 12 minutes late, set ran 98 minutes with some quasi helpful video. Gee I miss Johnny Cash ! 83 B
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