Johnny Cash special: tribute or informercial? I missed the first 15 minutes or so of last night's "tribute" to Johnny Cash on CBS, so I missed Sheryl Crow's rendition of "Ring of Fire" and Brad Paisley's cover of "Folsom Prison Blues." But if the rest of the show was any indication, I didn't miss much. (This reviewer said Paisley lacked the "gravitas" to do "Folsom Prison Blues" justice, and had nothing good to say about Crow's performance.)
The highlight, to me, was seeing Jerry Lee Lewis again. The old killer is pretty long in the tooth these days, but he still pounds the keyboards pretty well. He and Kid Rock performed "Walk the Line" together, but again, it fell flat, like most of the performances. Kris Kristoffersen and the Foo Fighters, an odd pairing, performed "Sunday Morning Coming Down," which Kristoffersen wrote and which Cash made a hit. It was, perhaps, the best performance of the night. But I think Johnny Cash deserved better than he got last night. Let's hope the biopic is a more fitting tribute.