A Tribute Or Was It An Assassination?

I have a confession: I watched the Tribute to Johnny Cash, a.k.a., An Excuse to Brazenly Promote "I Walk the Line." I couldn't help it. It was like a train wreck, and I couldn't turn away from the bloody gore and wreckage of what was Johnny Cash's music. That and sentimentality. My mom always loved Johnny Cash, as does my brother, so I grew up being forced to listen to his music. (Okay, I admit. Not too long ago I downloaded his song "Hurt," but c'mon, that's a classic.) I didn't actually turn the sound up until Martina McBride showed up on the screen with her skeleton thighs. (My husband said that sounded like a good title for a country song.) She performed a June Carter song (don't ask me which one). It was pleasant, but honestly, you could put a stump on stage and that would be an improvement over the original. When I was but a young girl, I thought June sang with Johnny by default. You know, kind of a Paul/Linda McCartney kind of thing. "Hey, luv, 'ere's an idea. You could get on stage WITH me. It'l be fun. Somethin' we can do as a cuple" (add Liverpool accent). It wasn't until recent years that I found out that June was a "success" long before Johnny came on the scene. Who knew? I mean, the woman barely stayed on pitch. Weird. That's country.

Moving on, they had Kid Rock and Jerry Lee Lewis (who looked barely conscious and like they had to pump him full of steroids and prop him up to perform ) butchering "I Walk the Line."
Next was U2--Bono--need I say more?

Nora Jones performance was very lackluster and monotonous (surprise, surprise), seemingly interminably plodding along until, thankfully, the end. You just wanted to slap her for the newly recovered "country twang" she adopted for the tune. Just sing the damn song. If you're going to add something, add DYNAMICS. SOMETHING! Anything beyond the usual mind-numbing dullness of your usual tripe. And her music is often compared to Billy Holiday and Nina Simone? Yeah, compared and found profoundly lacking. Please. Her name should not be SPOKEN in the same UNIVERSE as Billy Holiday and Nina Simone, much less compared. Oh, and headline "Jerry Lee Lewis stole the show from Norah Jones..." (See above) Nuf said.

Onward and upward: Kris Kristopherson and the Foo Fighters. Now, when I heard Foo Fighters, I must admit, I was a little frightened. But thankfully, they kept their dignity and didn't try to infuse their music genre into the song or do something cutesy with it. One of the few.
I always find these tributes so amusing. Generally, you can translate tribute to mean a slaughtering of the tributee's songs. But I do think there is a lesson to be learned from this travesty:

Rockers/Faux jazzers, leave country music to the people who know it best: Country music performers. They were the only ones that didn't totally slay the tunes.

Another evening well spent.