Austin loves Johnny Cash.

I don’t know…something about Johnny Cash resonates deep in the heart of this city, a city that has always walked the line between the odd, strange sorts of people who live here and the deep-entrenched traditions and values of her roots.  From the saw blades on the walls of the Mean Eyed Cat to Chickenshit Bingo on a Sunday afternoon at Ginny’s Little Longhorn, the shadow of “The Man in Black” looms long and large over this city.

Johnny Cash loved Austin.

Friday, February 26^th, Johnny would have turned 78 years old.  He’s moved on.  I’m sure Johnny was probably celebrating with June up in the Sweet Bye and Bye, sitting at a banquet table of good Southern cooking alongside the Good Lord, Roy Orbison, Elvis, and Jack. I don’t know about you, but I take a certain kind of peace in knowing that…a peace that passes understanding.  Until we meet again…

Happy Birthday, Johnny Cash!

In the meantime, we folks down here in Austin celebrated Johnny’s life, music, and memory with a cold Lone Star and some good ol’ fashioned hillbilly rock and roll.

The faithful began to arrive at Emo’s Friday night around 7:00 p.m. with their black shirts, black pants, and black boots.  This was Johnny’s night, and founder/promoter Rowdy Tijmes guaranteed that the Johnny would be honored at the site of his last concert in Austin by enlisting the help of nine bands, including two of his own original band members, W.S. “Fluke” Holland (drums) and Earle Poole Ball (piano).

“I just want to support the local musicians here,” Rowdy says.  “I want to keep the Cash Bash true to what Johnny believed, and Johnny believed in helping out the small guy…you know, he brought on The Statler Brothers…sang Kristofferson’s ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’ on his show.  I want the Cash Bash to be done in that same spirit.”

The HiTones, a fledgling act (barely a year old on the Austin scene) were the first act on the bill.  They played a handful of Cash tunes, including “I Walk the Line” amid some of their originals, which they claimed “Johnny would have probably listened to.”  They’ve got fresh legs, granted, but The HiTones are a solid rock and roll band.

All the same, it’s not an easy thing to play the first spot on a nine-band roster, by any means, and it certainly didn’t help that the subsequent bands (and the audience’s listening pallets) were primed and ready for some lawless outlaw, rockabilly country music.

Roger Wallace satisfied that with a more stripped-down country format, cowboy hat, upright bass, a few chords, and a no-bullshit demeanor — the same demeanor that has come to typify the country music scene made famous by the likes of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, and (of course) Johnny Cash.  His set, however brief (to accommodate the large number of acts), was a perfect segue to the rest of the show.

Roger Wallace bid his farewell, tipped his hat, and blessed Johnny Cash.

The crowd was ready, the bar lines were stacked, and The Skeletons took the stage.  The Skeletons put a boot-heel on the starter and revved the gas on the 4^th Annual Johnny Cash Bash.  Dressed in black with pompadours pulled back, Jeremiah Ingram put out his cigarette and led his band of rockabilly hellions through a rapid succession of Cash covers and originals with the same relentless attack of The Ramones.  The Skeletons played a high-octane set (no less) that brought with it “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” and a gun-in-hand version of “Sam Hall,” among others.

The Skeletons are a dark, dangerous combination of style, energy, and rock and roll. Their set was nothing less than a pivotal moment at the Cash Bash.

The party had now begun.

Lucky Tubb & The Modern Day Troubadours followed The Skeletons.  Rowdy Tijmes introduced the band and noted the royal pedigree of Lucky himself, the nephew of country legend Ernest Tubb.  The highlights of their set were the duet numbers of “Jackson” and “Long Legged Guitar Pickin’ Man,” during which Lucky shared vocals with fiddle player Natalie Page Monson, bedecked in a vicious red and black satin dress that ignited her auburn curls and crimson lips, to cover the parts originally sung by June Carter Cash.

The Band in Black and The Derailers were the next acts on the bill.  I bounced back and forth between W.S. Holland’s tour bus and Emo’s laying in wait for a possible interview with Johnny Cash’s drummer before he hit the stage around midnight.

The Band in Black brought a host of backup musicians and a three-piece female vocal support to ring in a solid birthday show for “The Man in Black.”  Their set was a nostalgic jaunt through the Johnny Cash catalog, with some mean harmonica playing that hummed perfectly over their ensemble that dominated the stage.  They looked the Polyphonic Spree in black pearl snaps, playing everything from “Folsom Prison” to Johnny’s rendition of “Personal Jesus.”

The party hit full tilt with The Derailers, as it seemed that a large majority of the crowd came to see the hometown band celebrate one of their largest influences with a spattering of covers and original tunes in support of their latest album, 2008’s Guaranteed to Satisfy. Brian Hofeldt and the rest of the band rocked the Cash Bash.  I caught their show in pieces as I ran back and forth from the W.S. Holland Band’s bus to Emo’s, hoping to catch an interview opportunity before they hit the stage at midnight.

Eventually, I was welcomed onto the bus by W.S. Holland’s lead guitarist and vocalist Ron Haney, where I was able to sit down with the band and “Fluke” Holland himself while they waited for Earle Poole Ball to take the stage.

Being on that bus and then walking down to Emo’s and watching Earle Poole Ball from behind the stage with “Fluke” Holland and his band was one of the most surreal moments of my 28-year existence on this planet.  There I was, standing beside Johnny Cash’s only drummer, the man who pounded out the beat on the original recording of Carl Perkins’s “Blue Suede Shoes,” who was the third man to make “The Tennessee Three,” and who laid down the rhythm for the Million Dollar Quartet recordings, as he tapped on the splintered, wooden railing of the backstage stairwell listening to Johnny’s pianist tickling the ivories of his old bread-and-butters to a rowdy crowd of southern hell-raisers.

And somewhere up there, Johnny was pointing that fret board down at us like a shotgun from his shoulder…

The hair on my arms stood on end.  It was as if these aged sages of the Golden Age of Rock and Roll had channeled the forces they conjured up once upon a time in the Sun Records studios of Sam Phillips — the very same forces that have kept this planet spinning for the past 50-plus years — right here to rock Austin, Texas.

My head and my heart were reeling.  Nonetheless, I was able to sit down with “Fluke” Holland shortly thereafter for an interview (the transcript of which is soon to come…so keep an eye out!).

The W.S. Holland Band took the stage just after midnight and closed the night out with a near two-hour set.  They played it all.  From Chuck Berry to Carl Perkins, from Elvis Presley to Johnny Cash, the best of Memphis, the lifeblood of Rock and Roll funneled through our ears and bodies from the first man to put the roll of a steam engine to the rattle of a snare drum.  Joined by Alan Wheeler on the keys, Jim Reese on the bass, and Ron Haney on guitar and vocals, “Fluke” hit all classics and kept the feet dancing in Emo’s long past the witching hour.

After an impromptu drum solo and a moving performance of Cash’s original “Ragged Old Flag” (with Old Glory placed front and center), W.S. Holland and Earle Poole Ball took the stage together for what was the apex of the 4^th Annual Johnny Cash Bash. The two exchanged stories together to the hundred-or-so who had the wherewithal to stay up with them…just two old friends talking about the good times way-back-when out on the porch late into the night with whomever cares to hang around and listen…all in remembrance of their dear friend and brother, Johnny Cash.

Happy Birthday…