THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 4, 1995 TAG: 9502040355
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: CONCERT REVIEW
SOURCE: BY RICKEY WRIGHT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
``Folk songs about killin' people,'' Johnny Cash wryly noted onstage Friday night at Chrysler Hall, are ``pretty popular.''
The remark was one of several Cash made about his recent album ``American Recordings'' and its Grammy nomination in the contemporary folk album category. He mentioned that some of the tunes, like ``Oh Bury Me Not,'' weren't so contemporary: ``Guess they gotta think of somewhere to put us, though.''
Johnny Cash, obviously, remains Johnny Cash, wherever he's slotted. Who else would leave ``Music Box Dancer,'' pianist Earl Poole Ball's instrumental feature, in his set, besides a man in a career renaissance that's seen him all but anointed the successor to Kurt Cobain as an icon for Generation X?
That moment of surrealism came near the beginning of a two-hour program Cash calls his ``family show.'' That tag implies that in overall form, it's as ready for Opryland or The Nashville Network as the Tidewater Performing Arts Society that presented it. Not everything was theme-park ready, however. Cash straddled the fence between the righteous sentiments of ``Redemption'' and laments about estrangement and guns such as ``Sunday Morning Coming Down'' and ``Folsom Prison Blues.''
``Family'' took on many meanings in this show, not the least of which was spelled out in a duet between Cash and son John Carter Cash on ``Paradise,'' John Prine's ode to a way of life - coal mining - now largely passed.
After Johnny Cash delivered a solo acoustic mini-set dominated by ``American Recordings'' numbers such as ``Drive On'' and Nick Lowe's ``Beast in Me,'' he welcomed wife June Carter for duets on their '60s hits ``Jackson'' and ``If I Were a Carpenter.'' June and two generations of Carter Family members (including sister Helen and daughter Rosie) then took over with an extended reminiscence of that famed clan and its rock-solid songs. ``Church in the Wildwood'' was particularly touching, not least for the endearing shakiness of its reading this night.
In his encore, Cash made ironic sport of the current music scene by juxtaposing ``Delia's Gone,'' from ``American Recordings,'' with his biggest-selling single, the 1969 novelty ``A Boy Named Sue.'' Before the former, a bloody rewrite of a traditional murder ballad, he promised, ``You'll fully understand why they don't play me on country radio'' these days. Then, he carefully spelled out ``Sue's'' tale, which of course plays for laughs a barroom fight between father and son that nearly ends in death. It was a reminder of how things have changed. Some things, anyway.
But not, in his essential vision, Johnny Cash. ILLUSTRATION: CONCERT REVIEW
Johnny Cash
With June Carter and the Carter Family, and John Carter Cash
Friday night at Chrysler Hall
by CNB