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Put Another Nickel In: Cash Only

In the last year of his life, Cash greenlighted at last his movie biography (Walk the line) and gave William Meade permission to do a Broadway show based on Cash music. Meade ran directly to Maltby, who, though a country mile from Cash's C&W milieu was "struck by the content" of his songs. "I think he was a genuine poet. He wrote from the heart, about people--that's why the songs are dramatizable. I was surprised-- as I think audiences will be--by how sexy, funny, honest, touching the songs are." And, in an odd way, he sees no overlap with the film, which

[[image]] Joan Marcus
The Broadway cast of Ring of Fire (l.-r.): Cass Morgan, Jason Edwards, Beth Malone, Jarrod Emick, Lari White and Jeb Brown

focused on the facts of Cash's life, not his art. "You would hardly know from the film that his songwriting was significant at all. I wanted to put onstage the man, and the life, revealed in those songs."
With 38 songs (out of a possible 1,500), Maltby fashions an invisible narrative.
"There is in Ring of Fire, certainly-- and, to a lesser degree, there is in Ain't Mishbehavin'--a story but not a plot. Jonny Cash's story is present in the show, but it's not a biography. If you look at it, you'll see it's not necessarily his life but a life that exists inside the soul. What was in his songs was the story of a kind of life that you lead--a life that he led--ultimately, a deeply American kind of life--a hard life, tied to the earth, tied to the simplest values that hold people together-- family, children, marriages, faith, land, earning a

[[image]] Joan Marcus
Richard Maltby, Jr.

living, getting through the day. That's what he was really writing about.
"These are songs that are often sung with nobody particularly paying attention to what they're actually singing. Sometimes, in the midst of a love song, there's a line that shocks you, it's so real. There's a song called 'Daddy Sang Bass,' which is almost a hoedown, where it's mentioned that his brother died and that the family has dealt with a tragic event. What's that doing in the song? Well, it's what the song is really about. It's about hard lives, lived with dignity and joy, surmounting obstacles. There's always these amazing things country songs have. They tell it like it is. They don't gloss it over with euphemisms or empty sophistication. It's "What are your shoes doin' under her bed?"
But Ring of Fire extends beyond country-western borders, he insists. "It's hard to tell people it really isn't a country show. I secretly think it's because the division between the red states and the blue is a lie. There's more that binds us together than separates us. Basically, what ties us together as Americans are the same values. The slogan of 'family values' has been picked up by an unfortunate element that has wrapped itself in false piety when, in truth, those values are present in just about everybody. That's why the show isn't just officially American but profoundly American."

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