Hutchinson Leader Article 4-18-15 by Kay Johnson

By KAY JOHNSON johnson@hutchinsonleader.com

Everyone has a favorite Johnny Cash song. Whether it’s “Folsom Prison Blues,” “A Boy Named Sue” or “Ring of Fire,” you’re likely to hear it when the Church of Cash performs.

The Johnny Cash tribute band will take the stage at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 18, at the Hutchinson Event Center. The concert is a fundraiser for the Hutchinson Senior Center. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door.

“We perform a variety of songs primarily from his early career,” said Jay Kalk, who performs as Johnny Cash. “We carry on the torch of songwriting and storytelling that Johnny Cash was famous for. He had such a cool message and was such a great American storyteller, we feel that’s it our turn, our job to carry on his message by playing his songs.”

Kalk, a native Minnesotan, grew up on Cash’s music.

“My dad was a Vietnam veteran and performer,” Kalk said. “We lived on a farm and while working, my old man would be singing, humming Johnny Cash songs. I was too young to know anything about Johnny Cash. They were just songs my old man sang.”

For about 10 years, Kalk made his living touring with bands in Arizona, California and Hawaii.

“I was living in Hawaii,” he said. “I was touring with another band. I would pick up gigs on the side. I played Irish music, country. Every time I played Johnny Cash, people stood and took notice. Then I got the clever idea, I should do a Johnny Cash band. My voice sounded like his. Before I knew it, I was sitting down with the music and I knew these songs from years of my old man singing them. It was useful. My memorization time was down to nil. I had a full set of songs I already knew.”

When Kalk returned to Minnesota, he formed a new band naming it Church of Cash.

“I wanted something that wasn’t a fan name but an idea,” he said. “When I think of the Church of Cash, I believe when we start playing, the whole complex wherever we are — a bar, backyard, a club or a VFW, you name it — that is now the Church of Cash and we’re all members. I wanted to construct it as WE, all of us, a celebration of the Man in Black.”

Kalk said Cash’s music affects people in different ways.

“In some way or another Johnny Cash has touched their lives,” he said. “I get to talk to those folks, hear their stories how his music touched them.”

He met one woman who was Cash’s neighbor. She said when he came home from tour, he would take all the kids in the neighborhood for ice cream. He wouldn’t say much, but listen to what the kids were saying.

Singing the same songs over and over might get boring for some but Kalk said he never tires of it.

His favorite song — “Highwayman,” a Jimmy Webb song, performed by Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson.

“The song is brilliant and timeless to a point that I look forward to it every night,” he said.

 

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