Johnny Cash Tribute Artist Shawn Baker Hits the Road
Rockabilly performer and former Elvis impersonator, Shawn Barker, has morphed from the King to the Man in Black. Barker has been taking his Johnny Cash tribute show called "The Man in Black" on the road to resounding success. Barker performs songs that span the entirety of Cash's career--from the Sun recordings to the last work Cash did with Rick Rubin--but his on-stage persona is that of a young Cash, say about early 1960s. Even when he's doing Cash's last iconic recordings, he remains in the early '60s Cash persona which lends an interesting aspect to the show as you can imagine how the young Cash would have treated songs that he mastered as an older gentleman.
Barker had been an Elvis impersonator until he auditioned for the role of the King in a Hollywood production of the musical "The Million Dollar Quartet." That broadway show is based around one of the most famous jam sessions of all rock and roll history when Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis where all present playing and singing together in the famed Sun Studios for the first and only time back in the mid 1950s. He didn't get that role, but the producer saw something else in him and offered him the role of Cash instead. Although other commitments prevented him from actually playing in the show, his Man in Black impersonation was born.
There's no doubt that Barker has undertaken a huge responsibility in trying to do the Man in Black justice up on the stage. Johnny Cash fans won't settle for a sub-standard rendering of their hero, nor should they have to. Nor do they have to with Barker's performance. He nails Cash's mannerisms and sounds very accurately.
It took considerable time to successfully transform his act from Elvis to Cash and it required intense study of Johnny's on-stage persona and personality. After a transitional period where the two great artists often melded into one during his performances, Baker eventually nailed it and now his show is all Cash through and through. And the fans are loving it everywhere he goes.
"The Man in Black: A Tribute to Johnny Cash" is scheduled for a number of shows around the US and Canada and it will hopefully make it to Europe and other parts of the globe sooner rather than later. Keeping the Cash legacy alive is what Barker's show is all about. And Barker does a great job of it.
Buster Fayte is an author and rockabilly musician. He has written several books including the Complete Home Music Recording Start Kit. He also maintains the Rockabilly Romp blog at http://rockabillyromp.info where he writes about the passion he shares with millions of musicians and fans for rockabilly and oldies music. He writes original songs, sings, and plays both guitar and bass.
Print this page
