“I Walk the Line” is a music special that’s supposed to be a night to celebrate Johnny Cash, the late music legend and rebel. Instead, it’s a poorly done hour-long promo for the new movie starring Joaquin Phoenix as Cash.
“Nobody ever walked the line like Johnny Cash,” Phoenix says, struggling through the intro. “He walked the line between rock and country, patriot and punk, sin and salvation. … He sang songs for convicts and kings and saw the nobility in both.”
Cash, of course, was all of those things and more, but anyone not the least bit familiar with his work before watching this show won’t be any more enlightened by the end, either.
Phoenix and his “Walk the Line” co-star Reese Witherspoon share the hosting duties and provide the connection to the clips from their film that are used between musical performances.
So, instead of actually seeing clips of any of Cash’s work, his concerts or his TV appearances, Wednesday evening at 8 EST we see Phoenix playing the Man in Black, which makes the whole thing a phony infomercial.
Clips of Cash on TV or performing might have made a good connection between the current stars playing his music and those audience members not intimately familiar with his work.
But no.
As for the performers, there’s a star-studded list singing some of Cash’s songs, but for a couple, the segments are without emotion or energy.
Ken Ehrlich and Randy Phillips are the executive producers behind this, which makes this project even more dumbfounding. Ehrlich is truly the best at producing music specials and has an uncanny knack for pairing acts together to create magic.
With this bunch, sadly, Ehrlich may have run out of magic dust.
Brad Paisley opens the show with “Folsom Prison Blues” and it goes downhill from there. Paisley lacks the gravitas to carry it off. Sheryl Crow warbles through “Ring of Fire” with a weird voice she seems to have created to fit the song.
And Kid Rock and Jerry Lee Lewis, a spirited pairing on paper, never make it, as Lewis isn’t strong enough to carry it off.
On the positive side, Martina McBride is wonderful. Putting Kris Kristofferson and the Foo Fighters together on the Kristofferson-written “Sunday Morning Coming Down” was brilliant.
Kristofferson, who said he worked as a janitor for Cash in the 60s and later sold him songs, is the only person to grace the stage who really seems connected to the music or the man.
Dwight Yoakam and Alison Krauss performing “If I Were a Carpenter” are equally as strong. And Montgomery Gentry are just fine.
Cash deserved better and he got it in 1999 when TNT put together a full-fledged tribute, while he was still alive.
Here’s a suggestion: Spend an hour trying to find a tape of that one before using the time to watch this.
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