>>PREVIEW
JOHNNY CASH’S LEGENDARY TENNESSEE THREE
Tuesday, April 25
Cowboys
In the wake of a famous musician’s death, or of the leader of a seminal band’s exit, we are accustomed to seeing the remaining band members hit the road, rehashing the hits they played in a tired mockery of the band they once were. Make no mistake. This is not the case with The Tennessee Three, the acclaimed trio responsible for the boom-chicka-boom sound that is part and parcel of Johnny Cash’s greatest hits.
It’s a subject guitarist Bob Wooten has become accustomed to as he and original Cash drummer W.S. Holland make their way across the continent, playing a mixture of Cash tunes and their own numbers (the latter sometimes almost indistinguishable from the material Cash sang).
"The songs we do still have the same sound and the same style," says Wooten. "It’s our sound, so it’s legitimate for us to use it."
No argument there. In the case of Holland, we are, after all, talking about the first and only drummer Cash ever had. Nicknamed Fluke for the fact that he borrowed a set of drums (never having played them) and recorded "Blue Suede Shoes" with rockabilly pioneer Carl Perkins before settling in for a three-decade career with Cash. Shortly after, Holland could probably sue for legal ownership of a drum style that wannabes imitate to this day.
Wooten became caretaker of the guitar style eternalized by Cash’s early songs in ’68, shortly after original guitarist Luther Perkins’s (no relation to Carl) death in a house fire. He was invited out of the audience to play onstage with Holland and Cash when bassist Marshall Grant and Carl Perkins (covering for Luther) missed a flight. At the time, Wooten was working evenings as an uncannily Cash-like singer in a cover band, spending his off-nights learning Luther’s licks because he couldn’t find a guitarist who could play the Cash songs right.
"It drove my mother crazy. That’s all I would do when I came home from work. I’d put on the phonograph and get my guitar out and do everything I could to sound exactly like him," he says. It obviously paid off the night Wooten was pulled from the crowd. "I walked onstage and played like I’d been doing it forever."
Sure, you could point out that the now-retired Grant is no longer with The Tennessee Three. Or that Wooten began by borrowing Luther’s style. But all you need to do is compare the much-lauded Live at Folsom Prison, featuring Luther on guitar, with this writer’s favourite Cash record, Live at San Quentin, to see how Wooten took something seminal, improved upon it and made it his own – better, even.
"That’s what John said. You took what Luther did and embellished it," recalls Wooten.
Thirty-eight years later, with Wooten’s wife and daughter singing backup and bringing the family feel Holland and Wooten grew accustomed to on tour with Cash, he’s no longer embellishing a sound so much as preserving something that is undeniably his own. |
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