The Man In Black - The Johnny Cash Story

Last night I went to see the fantastic Man in Black show staring
Tex Perkins, Rachael Tidd and the Tennessee Four.
The show is running a season here in Brisbane at the Twelfth Night
Theatre.
Here's the official publicity blurb.

Two hours of Cash’s magnificent music interwoven with the story
of his rise to stardom, his fight for survival and his eventual
redemption.The show explores his relationships –
with hardened prisoners to the beautiful June Carter and lots in
between.Johnny Cash was dealt a very tough hand, early in life,
but through his music and dedication, he became a legend throughout
the world

The incredible Tex Perkins is perfect in the role of Johnny Cash,
often he sounded just like Cash while singing.
He was certainly convincing, his performance like acting as much
as singing. A truly brilliant performance. The audience had a large,
lets say, older age demographic. Tex was no doubt unfamiliar to
these people, but he had them eating out of his hand.

Rachael Tidd was equally brilliant, I was unfamiliar with her
so here's a bit about her.

Rachael studied and played music before training as an actor at
the Victorian College of the Arts, graduating in 1997.
Since then she has performed in theatres all over Australia,
playing an electric guitar-wielding ingenue in Shakespeare
and an accordion-bending, saxophone-toting gangster moll in
Brecht, amongst others. She has appeared in musicals such as
Always, Patsy Cline and Sondheim’s Company, and counts
herself lucky to have been part of many premiere productions
and workshops including
All Het Up, Spontaneous Broadway, Your Dreaming and Sign of
The Seahorse with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
She has worked with Melbourne Theatre Company, Sydney
Theatre Company, Playbox/Malthouse, Chamber Made,
Majestic, Handspan, Theatreworks,
Really Useful Company, and Australian Shakespeare Company
to name a few. Rachael has to her credit a sprinkling of screen
roles, and holds a Masters Degree in Speech and Language
Pathology from La Trobe University.
She is also a voice and accent specialist, working regularly in
film, television and radio.

She has the most incredible voice and of course played the role of
June Carter, Cash's incredible wife and co-performer, for some
40 years.


The songs well lets see what I can remember.
Ring of Fire, I Walk the Line, Folsom Prison Blues,
Sunday Mornin’ Coming Down, Get Rhythm,
A Boy Named Sue, Hey Porter, Hurt, Bird on a wire,
Jackson, Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord),
Help Me Make It Through The Night, It Ain’t Me Babe,
Busted, Cocaine Blues, Greyston Chapel, Starkville City Jail,
Man In Black, 25 Minutes To Go, Dirty Old Egg-Suckin’ Dog
and If I Were a Carpenter.

The highlights, well the big songs were all highlights but special
mention goes to Jackson, perhaps the greatest duet of all time,
Hurt, this was incredible as haunting as the Cash version,
Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord),
given extra significance as Tidd and Perkins account for the period
surrounding Cash’s brother Jack’s untimely demise at the hands
of a whirling table saw in 1944,
It Ain’t Me, Babe, another fantastic duet and just a great song,
as was If I Were a Carpenter.
Of course Ring of Fire the song June wrote for him and
the very last song John performed before his death
was a fitting end.
A fantastic tribute and that's never going to be an easy thing to
pull off when you are talking about someone with a legacy
such as that of Johnny Cash.


The Band , oh weren't they great, they played every song with the
up most respect for the songs, faithful in the reproductions.

The Tennessee Four.

Dave Folley, Shane Reilly, Steve Hadley and Shannon Bourne.