Johnny Cash's music tours Vermont prisons

RUTLAND – The man in black stepped to the microphone to introduce himself to the crowd.

“My name is George Richard,” he told the 30 inmates seated in front of him and his band mates at the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility. “I started this band back in the springtime, and I’m Johnny Cash.”

Richard lives two lives. Mostly he’s George Richard, a guy who works overnight in the dairy department at Shaw’s supermarket in Colchester. When he’s on stage he’s Johnny Cash, the legendary country musician who’s been his favorite since Richard was growing up in and around Burlington, where he still lives.

Now 63, Richard evokes the musician known as the Man in Black from the top of his black cowboy hat to the tip of his black shoes. He sings in a baritone like the one Cash employed on hits such as “I Walk the Line” and “Ring of Fire,” even if as a new performer he’s not as self-assured as the brash Cash. Richard’s act, The Johnny Cash Tribute Show, strives to recreate Cash’s classic performance style, right down to assigning the names of Cash’s musical partners to the musicians in Richard’s band.

He also aims to keep Cash’s spirit alive by bringing his band into Vermont prisons, as Cash famously did in California at San Quentin and Folsom Prison. His reason is simple: That’s what Johnny did. If it’s good enough for Johnny Cash it’s good enough for George Richard.

“Thank you all for showing up today,” Richard told the Rutland inmates at the start of his performance Wednesday. “We’re going to put on a great show.”

‘You can call me John’

“I loved his sound, even when I was a little kid,” Richard said of Cash. “The unique sound of (his backing band) the Tennessee Trio, the ‘boom-chicka-boom’ sound which is very unique, you don’t hear that in other bands.”

“Unique” applies to Cash himself, a musician of inherent contradictions whose deep voice filled songs like “Folsom Prison Blues” with menace and whose upbeat-entertainer persona made “A Boy Named Sue” endearing. The bad-boy characters who populate his songs – often in or on the verge of prison, and frequently thinly-veiled representations of Cash himself – always seem one right turn away from redemption.

“He’s like a storyteller, and he’s a gospel singer, so he’s a man with many iconic ways of coming across,” Richard said.

Richard saw Cash perform in Vermont at the Flynn Center, St. Michael’s College and Memorial Auditorium. His fondness for the man only grew when he got to chat with Cash and his wife and fellow singer, June Carter Cash, after some of those shows, including once when he met them at their hotel after a 1987 show.

“I called him Mr. Cash and he said, ‘You were at my concert last night and you don’t have to call me sir, you can call me John,’” Richard recalled.

Richard sang Cash’s songs at karaoke and his friends would ask if he had any other material. He told them all he wants to do is sing Johnny Cash songs.

“People were telling me, ‘George, why don’t you just put a band together?’” he said. “A lot of them were telling me, ‘George, your instrument is your voice – get some good musicians behind you.”

He did just that a few months ago. Shawn Emery fills Luther Perkins’ role on guitar. Guitarist Marty Morrissey, who like Emery lives in Colchester, is cast as Marshall Grant. Drummer Wayne Wanser of Milton fills the spot of W.S. Holland. Marie Ragan of St. Albans handles vocals in the prime June Carter Cash slot. Only bass player Donnie Ray Quenneville strays from the script; the South Burlington man is cast as one of Cash’s inspirations, Hank Williams, and takes the lead on a couple of Williams’ songs to lend The Johnny Cash Tribute Show some of its variety-show vibe.

The Johnny Cash Tribute Show can be heard in clubs and public spaces but made its mark in prisons in South Burlington, St. Albans and Springfield before Wednesday’s show in Rutland. “We’re going to do them all,” Richard said. “That’s our goal, to do every prison in the state.” There are seven prisons in Vermont. 

‘There’s always dreams’

Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility has between 130 and 140 medium-security inmates, according to Superintendent Joshua Rutherford. Most, he said, are “detentioners” in their 20s awaiting trial. The remaining third have already been sentenced.

Rutherford said many of the inmates had issues with substance abuse and could benefit from being exposed to alternative activities such as music. “Johnny Cash certainly has a resonance within the prison system,” Rutherford said, though he added The Johnny Cash Tribute Show’s appearance is simply in line with the more than 100 other entertainers Marble Valley has welcomed in recent years.

The inmates, mostly in gray sweats, sat in gray folding chairs in the mostly gray room that contains a basketball net and some exercise equipment. Only a small mat on the wall behind the basketball net 30 feet in front of the band muted the noise from the drums and amplifiers that bounced across the room.

The band started with “Folsom Prison Blues,” the song made famous in a Cash performance at the namesake institution where the inmates cheered loudly at the line “I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die.” There were no such cheers in the Rutland crowd, but several inmates bobbed their heads and tapped their toes. (Marble Valley wouldn’t allow the Burlington Free Press to talk with inmates.)

One inmate sat sternly in the front row, his tattooed arms folded across his midsection, but mouthed the words as Richard sang “I Walk the Line.” Another sat in a grumpy slump in his folding chair but began singing along when Quenneville took the lead on Hank Williams’ “Why Don’t You Love Me.”

“I’d like to get somebody out on stage. How about June Carter Cash!” Richard said as he introduced Ragan. “Anybody want to hear ‘Jackson’?” A young inmate in the back of the room shouted “Yeah!” Richard and Ragan began the playful but intense duet, with Quenneville laying down the chugging bass line that propels so many of Cash’s songs. The inmate leaned forward in his chair, hands folded, upper body swaying, feet bouncing.

Richard started the second set with a pep talk, telling the inmates how he and the band achieved a goal with The Johnny Cash Tribute Show. “There’s always dreams and being positive on things, no matter your circumstances,” Richard said. “God bless all of you.”

The band introduced the song “Hey Porter” with Richard asking Emery what year he (meaning Luther Perkins) started playing for Cash. “1954,” said Emery, who at 22 is easily the youngest band member and and the only one close in age to most of Marble Valley’s inmates. “I could write a book on this stuff.”

Ragan assumed the persona of Patsy Cline on “Crazy,” slowing the tempo and introducing some tenderness into the room. Richard asked the crowd to sing along to the gospel tune “Daddy Sang Bass.” Few did, but the young inmate in the back of the room who was so into “Jackson” slapped his thigh with the rhythm.

Quenneville sang one more Hank Williams song. “You guys have been such a great, wonderful audience,” he told the inmates before playing “I Saw the Light.” “I think you should all give yourselves a hand.” They did.

The band ended by revisiting “Folsom Prison Blues.” “We would all like to say thank you for letting us be here in this prison,” Richard told the crowd. “It means a lot to us, and I hope it means a lot to you.” He went into the audience and shook hands with many of the inmates, most of whom stood for a loud ovation at the conclusion of the show.

As the band loaded its gear into cars parked outside the prison, Richard talked about what the inmates told him as he shook their hands. “They said, ‘Come back, we love your show,’” he said.

Richard plays prisons because that’s what Johnny Cash did. In the end, though, he wants more than just to mimic his hero and keep Cash’s music alive.

“They’re in a routine every day,” Richard said of the inmates. “I don’t know what they’re going through, but we can help them. We can give them hope.”

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/BrentHallenbeck.