He Lost His Parents Five Months Apart, Then This Happened

Singer, actor, musician, director, and Johnny Cash tribute artist Scott Moreau joins me for a conversation that feels as much as it entertains.

We talk about his upbringing in Maine, his love of theater and classic music, and how an adult fascination with Johnny Cash eventually led him to portray the legendary singer on stages across the country.

But this conversation goes deeper.

After losing both of his parents within five months of each other last year, Scott opens up about grief, healing, and the resources that helped him navigate unimaginable loss. Along the way, we discover that the themes of Johnny Cash's life—light and darkness, joy and struggle—mirror much of our own.

And yes, Scott performs.

It's moving. I cry. And if you stay until the very end, there's an unscripted musical surprise after the official interview wraps.

This is a podcast you feel more than you hear.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Before we get into the episode, shout out to the sponsors supporting undescripted turbulence. Dude Without Cocktails. Now I love it's bloody Mary mixed without alcohol. So you could really make it your own. I've had it both ways. Even made a medical martini with it. Shout out martinis with MEGI. Smoky, it's sultry, honestly, so good. If you're curious, use my code TRBULENTE26 for 10% off. The link is in the episode description. Take with lands, leave with medicine, and please follow or subscribe. It helps more than you know. We are going to rulement. We have turbulent. I'm gonna shout out for me to bring um another TV person. TV connects. So Scott is married to Sonia. And he is a Johnny Cash performer. Is that the way to say it?

SPEAKER_04 1:28

Like I don't So, I mean, I'm a I would call my I'm an actor, but I'm also a trivia artist, right? So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

I never knew what to say because I went to one of your shows on an and oh, I I love me some Johnny Cash. I and I found my love for him. Like my dad likes Johnny Cash. And then I I got to know Johnny Cash through my dad, and then I went to Nashville, went to the museum, and then I was just like hooked. Um, but Scott knows Cash in a way that many people don't, and we had our little discussion on the phone about this episode. Um so we're gonna eventually lead into that. Um, but first, I know we talked about your title, but so what would you consider yourself overall?

SPEAKER_04 2:14

Uh, well, you know, uh generally speaking, like actors, we we tend to use a lot of uh not hashtags, but um uh multi-hyphenates, I guess you'd say. But like I would consider myself a singer, actor, musician, director.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 2:34

In in that order. Because I feel like that's how I that's how I started out.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Right.

SPEAKER_04 2:39

With singing.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

So Okay. And um we'll start with where you're from, because I think this is interesting. You're from Maine.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

I am, I'm from the great state of Maine. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

And now you live here in New York.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

I do indeed, yeah. It's uh I wouldn't say it's a culture shock. I mean, I've been here for long enough that it's you know, it's but I think the first the first time I came here, I was 16. Um, came to stay with some uh friends of my mother's uh family friends really. Um one of their fathers had a uh had a psychiatric convention in town, and so we stayed at this like massive uh suite at I couldn't remember, I couldn't tell you what hotel. I think it was actually the Marriott uh Midtown.

SPEAKER_05 3:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:25

But anyway, so we stayed there, saw my first Broadway show. Uh my mother was a huge uh Mickey Mantle fan. He happened to die while we were here in New York, and the morning that he passed, my mom said, Well, we have to go to Yankee Stadium and see a game. So we went to went to the game on the day Mickey Mantle passed.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

And you got tickets.

SPEAKER_04 3:41

Yeah, yeah. Way I mean, way up in the way up in like the back row of the 400s. But and this is again, this is the old old Yankee Stadium because I think that was what, 95, 1995.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

An eon ago, but but yeah, so I'm from uh very small town in Maine. Uh it's called Lichfield. I I find it hilarious whenever I uh somebody asks and I say the actual town name, uh, and people are like, oh yeah, I know where that is. No, you absolutely do not know where that is. Um it is uh it's equidistant sort of between um Augusta, which is our capital, and uh Lewiston Auburn, um, which unfortunately is probably most known to people outside of Maine as the place where the mass shooting happened and uh in 2023. Um but but it's uh you know it's central Maine. I I grew up on the lake, I grew up in a very, very, very rural town. There are no there are literally no stoplights, there are no sidewalks pretty much anywhere. I mean, it is, you know, kind of in the middle of nowhere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

And now you live within New York City.

SPEAKER_04 4:44

I do, yeah. Yeah, it's very different. Although, you know, there is some I I found I found some solace, particularly during the pandemic, when, you know, uh obviously we all had our different things that we were dealing with. I was dealing with basically a year and a half of work that had been canceled, so I just kind of had to figure things out. But part of what I did was um, you know, trying to get a little more in shape, which I actually did quite well with even being confined. And I would do a lot of walks around Van Corland Park because we're uh you know we're not that far from there. And it, you know, it is a huge park. If no, if you've not been up there and you think the only big park in in the city is Central Park, I highly suggest you go up to Van Corland. There's just there's so much up there. I mean, there's little ponds and creeks.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Okay, I feel like I've been up there. It was when I was working at Channel 7 eyewitness news, and we did some kind of I don't know what kind of store it was snow. And I ended up walking back into this area where I never saw there was like a bridge in the middle of this forested area.

SPEAKER_04 5:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

And I I'm thinking, am I even in New York anymore?

SPEAKER_04 5:52

Yeah. I mean, it's that must be the same place. Yeah, and you're you know, you're right next to there's a golf course right there, and you're right next to the Henry Hudson. So it's like there's so much right there. Um, and also um again, like I said, vegetation. Um I don't know, it just feels like you're in a totally different place. So I found that, you know, I was missing home because I couldn't really travel home because of the pandemic, because my um, you know, my mother was immunocompromised, so that was just not a not going to be a thing until the vaccine hit. And so I just felt like I was, you know, missing home a lot. And so I found when I was going out and walking around there, it felt felt a little more like, you know, civilization that wasn't, you know, a concrete jungle, you know, and in a good way. And so I have a very uh that park has a nice uh you know, kind of a soft spot in my heart, I guess, up there. And they do uh there the uh Philharmonics playing there tomorrow night, I think.

SPEAKER_05 6:46

Oh really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:46

So they you know, they have all kinds of stuff. They do they do movies in the park. Um I mean you can take I I've walked all the way from Yonkers on those trails, like just over the over the line into Yonkers and then walked back.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Yeah, I'm not familiar with I'm more familiar with Astoria Park because I live in Astoria. I mean, it's just it's not the biggest park, but you know, you have your like little your little uh neighborhood areas. So yeah, I I I should get up there to check that out because I do like a nature walk. It's better than going all the way up to the Lower Hudson Valley when you have to be try to get through the traffic. Oh, yeah. Um, so now growing up, we you know when when did um the Johnny Cash thing start? I know we talked about this on the phone because you know you're you are a tribute artist to Johnny Cash. Right, he's a very layered individual, from what I know. Yes, again, you're gonna be schooling all us, all of us, because we also have a treat at the end of this pod.

SPEAKER_04 7:44

Yeah, I'll play a little something.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Uh-huh. Yeah. So you gotta stay tuned for it. So when did you get into the Johnny Cashness of it?

SPEAKER_04 7:51

Oh man, I mean, that honestly was pretty late. So I mean, I've only really been into him for maybe like 25 years. Um uh so you know, I'm an I I am an actor. I have a I have a BFA in music theater from Illinois Wesleyan University, go Titans. Um and so my background is really in theater, though kind of my first love growing up was um, you know, rock and roll and pop music, because a lot of a lot of that's basically what my parents played. They played a lot of Elvis, four seasons, uh Frankie Avalon, Ricky Nelson, uh the Beach Boys. Uh so that's the stuff that I basically grew up with. So I and I never really understood that that was a different sort of time period, you know what I mean? It felt like that was the current music when I was a kid because I didn't Oh, because that's all they listened to. Yeah. And then, you know, when we listened to stuff in the car, it was usually the oldies station, and then like sometimes easy listening. But you know, so that to me was what was sort of current.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Um would you consider that like dow kind of like was that because that's that's like a totally that's like another offshoot.

SPEAKER_04 8:57

I mean, it's a similar similar time period to me. Like doopp is what was created in in Detroit in the mid-50s at Hittsville, USA. So like uh The Supremes, Diana Ross, uh, I mean, even Marvin Gaye is kind of in there, little Stevie Wonder before he came became Stevie Wonder, um, and then a bunch of other like girl groups like the Crystals, uh, the Commodores, um, yeah, like that sort of stuff kind of dooop.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

All right, because I because my dad likes, I always called it do-op. He likes Motown very much, but he also likes like the I don't, it's like the uh, oh gosh, it's like I I don't like the music. It's not Motown.

SPEAKER_04 9:34

I thought it was doo-op, but now you explain it's like it might well be though, if it you're you know, if you're talking about like you know, multi-drive-in theater, like the drive-ins and sure 50s, like those, like the yeah. I'm thinking something like yakity yak, don't talk about it. Like that's you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Yeah, yeah. My dad loves it. God, I know he's listening, but I'm just gonna do it.

SPEAKER_04 9:54

Kind of do up, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

And he does like the Elvis, though, so I can, you know, yeah, I understand that. But all right, go on.

SPEAKER_04 10:00

But so that's I mean, that was sort of my introduction to music as a kid. Then I got into theater through my parents because they'd take me to shows, and even when I wasn't really all that interested, I thought it was pretty cool. Uh, but I just kept singing and singing and singing, and then thought, well, what's my path forward with this? Either I'm gonna be a music teacher or I guess I'm gonna go to school for theater, and I chose the latter. But then eventually, so you know, I'm I graduate college, I'm I'm out in the world now doing theater as a as a professional. Um, but I really was only doing it um in what we call summer stock, which is like, you know, basically between May and kind of end of August, usually. I mean, there are tons of theaters around the country that do stock. Um what is stock for somebody who wouldn't so basically it means uh that theater is probably only open for those for those months out of the year. They're they're they're closed for the rest of the year, they're only open during the summer. Um, I'm trying to think of things around that are like that.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Uh I know the Pocono Mountains has a like a community theater, and they are they're open. There's a community theater, but they're open only a certain amount of time.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

Probably what we call a regional theater. Yeah. So, like here in New York, there are a couple within the area, like Westchester Broadway is one. Um they're but they're year-round, and so is uh Gateway out on Long Island. Okay. They're another what we call a regional theater, um, but not again, not stock. So some of the more famous ones, like uh, you know, I'll I'm biased from Maine. Uh so one of the two of the most famous are the Agunqu Playhouse and Main State Music Theater. Agunquit Playhouse has been almost has been open for almost a hundred years. Uh Main State Music Theater is over 65, I believe. Um, so they're only open for those for those months because uh um of tourism and honestly, stocks started for a lot of Broadway performers who were sick and tired of the grind and they wanted to escape the heat. So people with, you know, that had relatively big names, like you know, people like Betty Davis have performed on the stage at Agunkwa Playhouse because they were sick of the heat in New York, they didn't want to be here, and they were like, well, I'll go to this beautiful place on the coast and do some theater, and tourists will come and pay a premium. And so that's basically how how Summer Stock got started, and that's how most theater performers really start. I mean, um, there's another famous one in um in Michigan called The Barn. That's where uh Jonathan Larson got his equity card. That's where um Marin Maisie, who passed, uh, she also got her equity card there. So um that's kind of where we all basically cut our teeth, is is in summer stock theater, where you're basically you start rehearsals um, you know, on day one for show one. And if you're cast for the whole season, it means like you start rehearsals, you rehearse for like two weeks, you open the first show, and as soon as you open the first show, the day after opening, you're in rehearsal for the second show. So now you're rehearsing a show all day and you're performing another show at night, and you do that for an entire summer. Okay, so I did that forever.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Okay, so I did this. Is gonna blow the socks off of some of the viewers and listeners. Your girl here did the theater. Oh, yes, my friend. High school theater, but still I did the theater. Right. I did musicals and straight plays. And the straight plays, it's just plays, like it wasn't singing and stuff. Um I couldn't imagine. I mean, when we did again, it was around school, so to do I couldn't imagine learning a play or a performance and then doing something different that night. Like, wouldn't you get tripped up by the lines memorizing?

SPEAKER_04 13:36

You know, like no, well, I mean, I'm sure some people do. We most of us just have a way of like compartmentalizing different things, I guess. I mean, uh, I mean, you want to get even more complicated. You talk about rep theaters, which uh there are a lot of places that call themselves a repertory theater, but they don't do shows in rep anymore. Doing shows in rep means you basically rehearse everything at once, and then every night is a different show. So if you're doing four shows in rep, it means that you essentially you rehearse one, you open it, you rehearse one, you open it, but eventually on Tuesday you're doing you know, Dames at Sea, and on Wednesday you're doing Grease, and on Thursday you're doing gypsy. So like you're doing different shows all the time.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

I mean, I guess I could say it's almost like doing a live shot, like for TV news reporters, right? Mm-hmm. In a way, like we have to learn real quick and do a live shot, but it's like a minute 30, not like three hours or whatever the shows could be.

SPEAKER_04 14:35

Yeah. Well, that's also how you know, if you're uh, and this is on my brain because uh we're we're taping this right after the Tonys. The Tonies were last year. Oh, yeah. Some of the best, I have to say, I've been watching the Tonies since I was a kid. It's what made me want to get into theater and be here and be on Broadway and all those things. Uh, some of the best uh performances last night. It was a great broadcast, I will say that. But a lot of those people that you see are swings or uh, you know, um offstage covers, and a lot of those people like there's a female swing in a show with a large ensemble, for instance, like Schmigadoon won Best uh Best New Musical last night. It's got a pretty big ensemble. There is some woman in that cast who is swinging eight female roles, so she may not be on stage tonight, but tomorrow she might be in role one, and so she has to know what side of stage she's on, what side choreography she's doing, what harmonies she's singing, and then you know, she could be off for a week, and then you know, she gets the call that she's on for track number six, and so she has to go through her book and know and know what all that is.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Well, you're really pulling back the curtain on what this Broadway situation is. I didn't know it was like that. So the swings are like you're kind of swinging from different positions within that show.

SPEAKER_04 15:51

Yeah, not on a you know, not on a nightly basis that would only be like in massive emergency, but you know, you you have ensemble members generally, um, who again, they're the people who are um sort of not in the background, but they're doing most of the choreography. Um they're singing harmony, um, they may have a couple of featured lines, but they're not the main characters. And then within that ensemble, sometimes you have offstage swings, which means there's somebody who doesn't perform on a nightly basis. They're basically waiting for somebody to get hurt, get sick to come in and take over for, you know, however brief it is. Sometimes they're like what they call vacation swings, so that you know, if somebody leaves to go on a vacation, they need to call somebody to come in. Uh, then it gets even more complicated when you're talking about massive companies like, you know, Wicked, who has a has a Broadway show, then they have you know a couple of national tours. So like let's say the Elphaba on Broadway decides she wants to um, you know, wants to take a two-week vacation and her understudy can't go on, then they might call the understudy from the first national tour to come back and and go on Broadway. I mean, it's just it's a very, it's a kind of complicated. I mean, it isn't really. I mean, it's like a that's why when people say it's like a big family, it really is. If you've done one show like that in any sort of main capacity, like if you've done the show Jersey Boys, you probably know everyone else who's done Jersey Boys or almost everybody. I mean, again, with Million Dollar Quartet, the show that I do and play Johnny Cash. Uh I if I haven't heard of you and you've done Million Dollar Quartet, like you've probably only done it once. Because we just we all know each other. We've either done it together or we we just we know multiple mutual friends who who have done it together.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

So you have you ever okay, so have you ever done Broadway or no, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_04 17:48

Uh not yet.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Yeah, yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 17:51

But I did the first national tour of Million Dollar Quartet. And what that means is when a show is on Broadway and it's successful, they decide, well, we're gonna take it out on tour and take it around the country. So at the time, Million Dollar Quartet was uh was on Broadway, was playing the Niederlander. Um and it had decided, well, around the same time that we went out on tour, they decided to transition the show to uh New World Stages out on what is that, 51st? Um that used to be movie theaters, and now it's a series of a bunch of different like smaller theaters. It's a great place to see a bunch of different shows. Um, but so uh we went out on the first national tour, so we rehearsed here in New York City uh at what used to be the Snapple Theater and is now oh I don't even know what it's called anymore. Times Square Arts Center, maybe.

SPEAKER_05 18:41

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 18:42

Uh it's where the Fantastics ran. It was the longest running show like in the world at the time. Um we rehearsed in the Jerry Orbach Theater there, which is uh somebody who I looked up for to for a very long time. Uh but anyway, so we rehearsed here in New York, and then we took the show out on the road. So we um, you know, we went to Cleveland to do what they call tech technical rehearsals. So for like two to three weeks we were there, like, you know, making sure the lightning designer had what they needed, um uh, you know, making sure that the the sound bugs were getting fixed, um, that you know, blocking and the set was everything, you know, was where it needed to be. Uh, and then we took it out on the road, and I was out on the road with it for four years.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Oh my god. So that's what Sonia would say. Like you're traveling with that specific I mean, you've among other things you've done, but that so the million dollar quartet. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 19:34

Million dollar quartet.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Who so Johnny Cash?

SPEAKER_04 19:37

Yep, Johnny Cash, Elvis Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis is the is the quartet. It all takes takes place at uh Sun Records, December 4th, 1956. Uh it was a Carl Perkins recording session. He was there to do a follow-up to his song Blue Suede Shoes, which most people don't understand is a Carl Perkins song. They think it was an Elvis song, but Carl Perkins wrote, recorded it, made it famous. Um he's there to do a recording session. Jerry Lee Lewis has just been hired as a studio piano player, is not sort of the rambunctious uh character we think of today. Uh he is in the show, but like he's not famous yet. Uh Elvis is in town uh because it's close to the holidays. He brings his girlfriend from the West Coast, uh, and Sam Phillips, who is kind of widely regarded as the father of rock and roll, who owned Sun Records at the time and was the um kind of mastermind behind all of those guys, as well as an engineer. He called Johnny Cash and said, Well, why don't you come over and um called the press scimitar to have a uh photographer come by, took a picture of the four guys around the piano and that's a true story. This is a true story, yeah. And so that's uh the next day the the thing ran in the in the paper and said this quartet could sell a million, and so they became known as the million-dollar quartet, and it really was the first and only time that they were all in one place at one time, and it kind of diverged very quickly from a Carl Perkins recording session to them just sitting around talking, talking about experiences. Elvis has just come from his uh, if you can believe it, first failed attempt at performing in Las Vegas. It did not go very well, and when he came back, he was talking about um having you know seen all these different performers, and so he's talking to the guys about it. You can hear it all because it was recorded. Um, and then they just start playing gospel songs and like trading off gospel songs and say, Hey, Carl, you know that one? Uh you do that you do that one on A, or oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. And so they just like play snippets of songs, and you know, it's like a probably a two hour session that is available, I should say. There is folklore that there is more that is technically available. And as we approach the 70th anniversary this year, I'm hoping that somebody, you know, pulls the wool off and says, Okay, well, here's that's all that stuff that we we knew. Existed, but we've been waiting to release.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Wow, that I mean, talk about a going back in time. Well, speaking of going back in time, um, take me back to the point where you really got involved with the Johnny Cash because it was oh it had a record store, right?

SPEAKER_04 22:16

Yeah, yeah. So I um so again, I mean we started talking about Summerstock, and that's right, right. We got to this. So I was working in Summerstock at the time, and I also did this tour that I I loved uh of uh a Christmas carol with a show uh with a group called the Nebraska Theater Caravan out of Omaha. So basically at the point, I was only working professionally in theater from about uh the week before Halloween until about Christmas. Okay, and then you know, whenever summer stock started for whatever theater I got cast at. So May to again August. So the other time I was living at home in Maine and I was working at a record store because I've always been a pretty obsessive music fan. I have, you know, a ridiculous collection of CDs and records and all of that. So I thought, okay, well, why not work at the place that I shop at all the time to get the discount? But also, like, I know what I'm doing. And if people come up to me and ask me for something, like I can actually be helpful. So I worked there for quite a while. It's a place called Bull Moose Music in Lewiston, Maine. It's a chain in Maine. Um, and so I was working there and I had a buddy who um he had a very eclectic music taste. He was very into uh Frank Zappa, uh Captain Beefheart, um Country Joe and the Fish. I'm trying to think of other people he was into. Um, but he kind of thought that he might know my taste, which he he really didn't. Um, but we were able to, you know, take used CDs off the, you know, off the off the racks and put them on and listen to them while we were while we were uh working. And so he said, Well, I got something for you, I'm gonna put on. I think you'll like it. I said, Okay, well, what is it? He said, Johnny Cash. And I said, Oh, I don't know, country man's not my thing. I was just like, I it's not, I don't like country because I'm thinking, you know, modern country, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:03

And so he put the record on, and I immediately was like, Oh, yeah, wow, this is this is great. This is great. Um, and again, like it's hard for me to really remember, but I'm pretty sure it was um Americ uh what they call American III, uh Johnny Cash, American III, uh solitary man. Um and so when I left that day, I bought the record. And then as I started kind of listening more and more to him, I started buying going back and buying more of the records, um, going kind of back to the beginning, all the way back to the beginning with his his start at Sun Records again, where Elvis got his start, where Carl Perkins, where Roy Orbison, where Conway Twitty, um uh Howland Wolf was first recorded there. Oh, um so you know, I went back to that point. Then I kind of met in the middle. Um at that point, um, you know, all these documentaries and books and stuff were coming out about him. Then he passed. Yes. Um, that was right around the time that he had just released the song Hurt and had been nominated for and won all of these music video awards on MTV.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

That's why were you saying that it was like banned on MTV?

SPEAKER_04 25:17

Oh, not that one, but the uh the um the Delia's gone video was was yeah, it was banned from MTV.

SPEAKER_05 25:23

Oh, MTV Right.

SPEAKER_04 25:25

Because he's shown because he's shown burying uh the model Kate Moss as though he has killed her and now he's burying her. It's I mean, honestly, even now, it's still pretty striking to watch. It's black and white, and he's all in black, and he's uh he's got a black duster on, and the wind is blowing and howling, and he's just kind of standing there glaring and just mouthing the words to the song, and it's it's it's uh it it is still pretty striking.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Can you find it on YouTube, you think?

SPEAKER_04 25:53

Oh, easy, easy.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

And it's called Delia's Gone.

SPEAKER_04 25:56

Delia's Gone, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 25:58

And in fact, it's a song that he wrote earlier in his career and then revisited. Um he wrote it, I think the late 50s, early 60s, and then decided to re uh to re-record it in 1993, 94 and put it on his first American album. And uh it's uh I will say it's one of those songs that I don't want to say hasn't aged well, but you know, it is about killing a woman and killing a woman who gets close to. So it's like, you know, you could argue things like, you know, I guess Maxwell's Silver Hammer, maybe not the best. It's about you know clocking a head guy over the head with a with a silver hammer.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

That said, um I mean he thinks about shooting a man in Reno to watch him die. Sorry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:47

So it depends, it depends on what you depends on how you look at it. But um, I guess, you know. Um well, I would argue that you know that's that's a different kind of violence than violence toward a uh toward a woman. So I think that's where I'm going. Ah yes, yes. It's like domestic abuse and assault is maybe not something you should venture into anymore. But if you consider it like a period piece, that's something that's that's something else. You know what I mean? Because he wrote it when he wrote it. I mean, he wrote it. There are there are plenty of songs within the uh the country diaspora that we refer to as um murder ballads. Well, most of them weren't recorded or written in the 60s, they were they were written in like the 1300s in in you know England. You know what I mean? So songs like um uh I'm trying to think of uh the Leuven brothers used to do a bunch of them. Um but they're you know, they're just they're they're what we call murder ballads, and that's what they're about.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

I have never heard that said before. Murder ballads.

SPEAKER_04 27:48

Yeah. I mean, you can even go further back, and there are I mean, there are plenty of um operas that are about similar things. I mean, one of my favorite operas is uh um is called Votseck, and it's basically it is very similar to that as a man who kind of goes insane and murders a woman. But I mean But then again, you know, there's shows like you know, Sweeney Todd is one of my favorite musicals. It's not quite that, it's different. He's yeah, but anyway.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

All right.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

I know things went a little dark there, but no, no, no. I mean, we're I just to be to be fair, you know. Yeah, Johnny had a dark side and a light side. It wasn't it wasn't always as dark as what people kind of think, but right.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

I mean, I just know I'm I mean, you know, I saw the movie Walk the Line with Reese Witherspoon. Right. You know, I saw that, so that's kind of and then in talking to you and understanding a little bit more layers.

SPEAKER_04 28:41

Yeah. Well, again, so that came out as uh again, like what I would say is like a perfect storm for me. Right. Because I Johnny, you know, I started getting into him like 2001, 2002. He passed in 2003.

SPEAKER_05 28:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:56

You know, all these tributes started coming out not long after that. Then people just calling him, you know, like the greatest ever. And then 2006, the movie comes out. And then at that point, the musical Ring of Fire was here on Broadway. And then it started going into, again, what I call regional theaters where I was working at the time. So by 2008, I was working in regional theaters that were starting to do the show Ring of Fire. And at the time, I was such a big fan that I just had my guitar and I was just like playing through songs on my own. Okay. Um, I worked for a theater for a long time that had uh they they still do, they do what they call cabarets. So on a Saturday night, um, after the show that the patrons have come to see, say Guys and Dolls, um, anything goes, they leave the theater and they go either into the lobby or a smaller space, and all of those performers come out in their playing clothes and have either guitars or uh sheet music for a piano player to play, and they do something different. And they're like, Hi, you may remember me as Sky Masterson and Guys and Dolls, but I'm here to do a song from Rent for you tonight. And it's just like a cabaret setting.

SPEAKER_05 30:02

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_04 30:03

So I found that instead of having to go and rehearse with a piano player every week, if I just worked up a song with my guitar, I could stand up there and do it. And so I started doing Johnny Cash songs almost every week. And by the time Ring of Fire was released, the rights were released so that they could be done in regional theater, the company I was working for said, Hey, so you keep doing those Johnny Cash songs at cabarets. Do you are you interested doing the show? Because we really think we want you to do it. I was like, uh, yeah. So I performed as not again, not as him, but performed his show, his songs on stage professionally for the first time in 2008 in Ring of Fire, and then just kind of snowballed from there.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Yeah, I was trying to think it fireballed from there. So you think snowballed. Oh my gosh. Because I I mean I saw you perform live, what was it? It was last year. I want to say it was September. Yeah. And I was blown away by like what you could do. Yeah, no, I mean what would you say was your first song that you played of his, or one that you that you love to play? I know that's a big wide old, big old question.

SPEAKER_04 31:16

I mean, it's hard to not say I walk the line. It's such a complex song. Um lyrically, musically, it was very meaningful to him. Um so it's hard for me to not say I walk the line. I I would probably put that at the top. Um, I would also say that, you know, kind of at the beginning when I started playing a lot of tunes, uh, one that I gravitated toward was called Drive On. Um it's one that he wrote again, like in the in the early-ish 90s, you know, 92, 93. Um, and he wrote it, and it's the story I always tell when I do this song, but he wrote it because he and June were reading all these books about Vietnam and the conditions, and like they had gone to Vietnam and and performed for the the soldiers a number of times, but he was an avid, avid reader. I mean, he he read everything, and so he he started reading these books about the the this the soldiers' experience in Vietnam, and he read a line about um basically guys going along, they'd see one of their buddies get shot and fall, and there was no time to stop and like help them or grieve. So they'd just say, Drive on, it don't mean nothing. And so he took that and he wrote a song and put himself in the place of a veteran who had come back and was thinking back on the experiences and how different things were now, but also how then they had to drive on to go past what was right in front of them. But now driving on meant like keeping living and keeping going and you know, do doing what they could to kind of sort of fight the good fight, but not in war in life. Which I you know is relatively complex, but that's kind of who he was. So I I definitely grab gravitated toward that song, and I find that when I perform, there's always veterans in the audience, and anytime I do a song to, for, about veterans, um if I even if I don't mention them, but I always you know dedicate it to them usually. Yeah, uh, either that one or another song in my repertoire, and you know, people always come up and thank me afterwards. Oh, and so to me that's that's one that I've I've just always done because partially because of that, but because it's just a great song to me.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

So do you I know I mean we have a lot of time, which is good that we can play with us. So do you want to do a song now? Do you want to do it later? How are you feeling? Because obviously we have other talking.

SPEAKER_04 34:00

I'll do one. I'll do one later. That's all right.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

Okay, sounds good. All right. So another thing I want to talk to you about within the you know, Johnny Cash, and when you, you know, are performing and you're and being a theater person like myself, only in only in high school theater, you know, you draw upon real life personal experiences. Absolutely. And I know that you went through a very big personal experience within the past year, um, losing your parents. And I know I wanted to talk about this because I've had another friend here talk about um, you know, their their grief and and how they've transformed that. And um, you know, in talking about that with your music, I mean, do you ever combine the two or uh I've started mentioning my folks uh pretty much at every show. Really?

SPEAKER_04 34:50

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Because they were obviously a very, very big support.

SPEAKER_04 34:54

Yeah, they were a big support, but they were really my first sort of everything. I mean, you know, as I said, they introduced me to music as a kid, playing me different stuff. My dad absolutely is the first person I the first country music, first country song I ever heard was something that my dad played. Yeah, Battle of New Orleans by Johnny Horton. I was probably three or four. I mean, I dis very distinctly remember it. Um, you know, my mother used to sing to me when I was little, and we have, you know, we had a song together um that she used to sing to me, and then we danced to it at my wedding. Oh, um, so like music was always a big um part of my life because of them. Yeah. Um, and then again, they, you know, they they never pushed me toward anything. They supported my my interests, and when my interests switched from, you know, baseball and basketball to theater, um, they were all about it, mostly because they were theater goers. And they, you know, I had been running around the living room since a since I was a little kid, like singing along to records and like holding fake microphones, or sometimes holding real microphones that they'd get me. And so they kind of saw from an early age that I was gonna be a performer. So it wasn't a big shock to them. So they just supported me through, you know, through college. They, I mean, they really didn't stop seeing shows until my mother really wasn't well enough to in maybe 2019. So if I had a show, they were seeing it. I was flying them to I flew them all over the place. I flew them to San Francisco, to Sacramento, to Toronto. Uh they were there when I opened the the tour at the Kennedy Center in DC. They were there for opening night. Uh, you know, so I flew them everywhere. I mean, they saw everything. They had, you know, all the t shirts, I mean, literally all the t-shirts and the glasses and the keychains. And I mean, they were, you know, they were really two of my my biggest fans.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

So And they must have been thrilled to get flown around everywhere just to kind of see other people.

SPEAKER_04 36:54

They did. I mean, they loved they loved traveling, they loved different things about it. Um, you know, my dad was an avid um photographer, even though he, you know, just a uh not a professional or anything, but he brought his camera everywhere and he really kind of taught me about amateur photography, and um I still do a lot of that and think about the things that he you know showed me how to get certain, you know, light and you know um, you know, make sure the aperture is this, and like I don't know. He he taught me a lot about that through our travels and seeing so many different things. Um, the place I thought, oh god, they're not gonna like this at all was I was out in Las Vegas for about 11 months doing a million-dollar quartet, and I thought I was gonna hate it, honestly. And about three months in, I went, Oh god, I really like it here. I could probably stay here. And I flew them out and they were there for an entire week, and uh, they were like little kids in a candy shop and never gambled once. Like they had no interest in gambling. All my mother wanted to see was like the the roof at Caesars, they wanted to see the fountain show at the Bellaggio. Um, I took them to Red Rock Canyon, uh, took them to Hoover Dam. I mean, they yeah, they they just loved it. They loved it. Um, but yeah, so I've you know, most of my shows I do as Johnny Cash. Right, you know, I do in character. So I either break character at the very, very end and thank people um and say something about my folks, or you know, now I'm also doing a lot of shows where it's just hi, I'm Scott. This is my pro this is my experience going out and playing Johnny Cash. Like I'm doing a show this week at a bar right across the street from my apartment. And and again, it's more of a bar show. So it I'm not I'm not portraying him so much as I'm just singing the tunes like him. And when I do that, I have much more latitude to bring up personal things. Like I bring up the song that um I didn't, but almost sang when I proposed to Sonia because we were in we were in uh Puerto Rico, she had been deathly ill for a couple days, which we now think probably was COVID, which we didn't know at the time, but because COVID hadn't fully hit. Yeah. But I was I was like, oh, I'm gonna sing this song. And then when it came to the moment, I was like, nope, you're not, nope, abort, abort, don't do that. But I bring that up when I sing that song because that's what I think of when I sing that song. Um, so yeah, so I had that ability to kind of be a little more personal. Obviously, when when I'm doing a musical like Million Dollar Quartet or Ring of Fire, the the best thing I can do is put something in the in the program. Yeah. So, you know, I I used to dedicate my shows to them anyway, but now I dedicate it to their memory and the fact that their support got me to where I am.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

And you feel that, you know, for everybody who goes through grief, you know, there is something that gets them through. Um, and for you, is it, you know, you're an artist, right? So is it the music? Is it kind of the inflection of what you're singing about? Because it's only what? So your your mom passed and then your father within one year.

SPEAKER_04 40:02

Yeah, within five months. So my mom was Halloween of 24, um, which hilariously, well, not hilariously, but also just kind of funny. My grandmother, her mother passed October 31st of 1988. And um, I feel like my grandmother somewhere is like, Donna, why did she you know, of course you had to, of course you had to die. But that was my day. Um and my father passed on March 18th, which unfortunately is my brother's birthday, March 18th, 2025. So within, again, about five months. Um as far as grief goes, I mean, uh, you know, I've been seeing a therapist for quite a long time, really since my mother was in a nursing home. Um, because I found I was having trouble dealing with I had a lot on my shoulders, is the best way to say it. I was dealing with her being there the feeling that my brother wasn't helping as much as I felt he could, and my father being a little lost, but also being on his own cognitive decline. And so I was struggling with trying to take care of all these things from, you know, Arizona or New York City or wherever it was that I was traveling to. And I'm like, you guys are there living in the same house, why can't you have a conversation? Yeah. And I'm the one here dealing with this. So I started seeing a counselor because of that, and then basically continued. Um, and then honestly, I I let it go for a while until my mom's uh started getting more uh sick, isn't the best way to say it, but once things started getting more dire, um I started in with with therapy again and then haven't stopped since then. So I mean I think that helps, but mostly I just talk about things. Um the music helps, but I would say, you know, there are a lot of songs now that I didn't associate with them that I associate with them now, and they're either a little too hard to sing or I wouldn't say they necessarily I think they're cathartic in a uh in a way that well, I sing this song called Live Forever, and I've been referencing them a lot lately with it. Um it's one that Johnny wrote relatively late in life. Uh he recorded it with the Highwaymen, which some people know, some people don't know, but they're uh Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Chris Christofferson, and Johnny Cash. And he recorded it with them, and with them, it's just kind of like a bouncy, fun number. But if you listen to what he's saying, it really isn't. It's it's it's about, I mean, it's uh it's about missing you when essentially will you miss somebody when they're gone? Like they'll live forever because you you're gonna their memory will live forever. The song that he is singing is going to live forever because it it'll always be there, and that's what it's about. And I think before I didn't think about that, and now I think about them and their legacy and their my memories of them are what will help them sort of live forever, you know? And so I've been singing that one, but again, it's not like it doesn't I wouldn't say it brings me solace because it it makes me think of them being gone. Right. But I that's just part of it. I mean, I again there's no like everyone has different paths with grief, like you know uh how there's no like timetable, there's no recipe for like what works and what doesn't. I will say I just finished a book that I forced myself to read because I was like I saw it was on a on a seller list actually on uh Bull Moose. Music.com, which is again the place that I work for in Maine that I'm an avid shopper at. But they always, you know, every week they come out with like what you know, new books, records, uh stuff is coming out, and this book caught my eye, and I went, okay, well, I guess I'll buy that. It's called Um Um My Parents Are Dead, What Now? Um That's by an author named Becky Robeson. I don't know her. This is not a like Yeah, no, no, no. But um it was a hard read because I found that I as I was getting through it, I went, Well, I'm glad I did that, and I'm glad I did that without having to be told I needed to do that. Oh man, I didn't think about doing that. Oh crap, I should have put that on my list. Oh, I did that. Great. Um that's kind of like how everything came up, but also as it happened, everything she talked about brought back the memory of me having to do that. Oh. Buying flowers for the funeral, you know, picking songs for the funeral, sitting in the office with the pastor, and like trying to think of what Bible passages and psalms my my mother would have wanted because my father wasn't capable, picking my father's casket, um, just things like that that you don't really think about. And if you're left to do them on your own, which basically I will say my brother did definitely did help me with my mother's. Yeah. But when you're left to do that, and you just have to make the best decision that you can because either someone else isn't capable or someone didn't tell you what they wanted, you just have to do the best that you can. And so that's a lot of what I thought about while I was reading this book was you know, just all of that coming back, all the processes of like, you know, because I'm the personal representative of my father's estate, it's not just about my my memories and the grief, it's also about like a fiduciary legal duty to the estate and what I have to do, what that means. Um, so and this woman was the same for her, her, for her father, uh the the author of this book. So I think uh again, we had a pretty similar experience, except her parents were much more prepared than than mine.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Well, I mean, I really like what parents are prepared. I mean, listen, I I I'm lucky my parents are both alive um still, but you know, I've been having more conversations than not about the grief thing. And I just was on the phone with my friend Tim yesterday, and we were talking about this because his father just passed. And he was just like, Reagan, it's just so weird. It's just so, it's not what you expect. And he his mom's still alive. Um, but you know, we were in this deep conversation about it, and I said, you know, it it's hard because this is like the time where like we're getting older. This is where like life starts really hitting you. And then I start thinking about, okay, you know, I guess I'm gonna have to get things in order. And uh, you know, as a kid, like you have some things and you don't have all the answers until like it happens.

SPEAKER_04 47:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:18

And what is that book called again?

SPEAKER_04 47:20

Um My Parents My Parents Are Dead, what now? What now? Becky Robison, R-O-B-I-S-O-N. And it's you know, I will say it's a very she's she is uh she's very funny in like in a dark comedy way, but in a good way. Yeah, you kind of do. And there, I mean it has but it has recommendations for everything, like and every um sort of circumstance. Like if you um if you were left without a will, if you were left with a will, if you were left with a will that very specifically says, I want all these people to have all of these things. Like it has it's almost like a choose your own adventure, like it has so many recommendations, and it's based on a web she created a website first with a bunch of resources that you could go there and find these resources, and then she decided to write a book about it. So it's the and the website, I believe, is the same. Um, my parents are dead what now.com, I think is what it's called.

SPEAKER_01 48:17

Well, I mean, yeah, if you think about it, because like really, I don't know. I don't I wouldn't like what two years ago you wouldn't have known?

SPEAKER_04 48:25

No, no, no. I mean, I think we at least because we were having to do things for my mother's health care, yeah, there were definitely steps that we put in place, and I would love to pretend as though I had help, but I'm the one who said we need to get an elder care lawyer, we need to do this, um, we need to figure out how to pay for these bills because mom is not coming home. You can, Dad, you can you can continue to tell me that you want me to to to rearrange the bedroom so that she can come home and sit in that chair, but that is not going to happen. I'm sorry. So we do need to move forward with this, and we do need to figure out how we're gonna take care of these things. And the again, the best thing I could have done was to get an elder care lawyer because now he's my lawyer through all of this estate stuff. And again, a lot of this is like laid out in the book that she wrote and on her website. So a lot of this was like validation as I was reading it to go, okay. So I did do the right thing there. I did, I did, I did things earlier than I thought in a good way. Like great, great. Um, but that doesn't mean it again that it didn't bring back um, you know, a lot of a lot of heavy, heavy memories, and just again, this feeling of isolation and just like I'm dealing with this by myself. Yeah, you know, yeah, shouldn't be, but I am.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

Yeah, no, it's interesting when you have a sibling, what we'll get into that with me on another podcast. God bless. Um, love my brother, but yeah, there sometimes one sibling is handles things a little different than the other sibling, right?

SPEAKER_05 50:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

And I do wonder when things get tough for myself how that's gonna all pan out. And you don't, again, you don't know until it happens.

SPEAKER_04 50:23

But what I will say is, I mean, you can be prepared. I mean, there are many ways to be prepared without like counting days or something. And that's the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

I'm not like I feel like my dad's like, I'm not in the ground yet. I'm like, no, I know, like you're not in the ground. I know, but I just like there's certain things we have to like figure out, you know?

SPEAKER_04 50:41

Right. I mean, listen, I the one thing I will say without being totally morbid, but it is something that I feel like people don't think about. And if they don't, like, well, you're gonna have to make the decision, is things like advanced health directives. You should have them, and your parents should have them. And if you don't know what they are, you don't want to have to try to figure it out at the very end. Oh, that's I mean, and they're very simple. Do you want to be resuscitated or don't you? Right. Do you want to, you know, do you want these things? As much as they're an uncomfortable conversation when you're faced with a doctor telling you, I need to know within the next 10 minutes what you think you want to do here. Yeah, you better have it in writing. Otherwise, you are gonna have to figure it out on your own, and then you're gonna have to explain to your loved ones why. I that sounds harsh, but it's true. I mean, my mother we had to make the decision, okay, do we insert a feeding tube to keep her alive because she can no longer eat and can't swallow and can barely breathe? Or do we let nature take its course? And because she didn't have ad advanced health directives, my brother and I had to make that decision. And we had to explain it to my father because he wasn't capable of understanding fully what was going on. And similarly with him, he fell and was incapacitated, and so we couldn't ask him anything. And even then we didn't have we didn't have it on hand. So my brother had to leave him at the hospital to go get the paperwork, come back with it, uh, show it to the doctors, which was that he did not want to be, you know, on a life support system, yeah, go into a vegetative state, any of those things. So that is the decision we made there. But what I'm saying is that of all of all the things, wills and all of that stuff, that's that's all yes, important, but that is one of the most important things that you can have is to know those things because you don't want to be trying to make that decision when you're emotional and thinking about, well, this is my mom. Yes, but it's also a it is your mom, and you you're trying to do what what is not only best for them, but what they would have wanted and what is in the middle there sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

So yeah, that's not a self. I got to do that for myself because I know that I think I think uh pilot, the husband, he has it for he has it taken care of. I just I've been dragging my feet. I'm just as bad. I mean, I'm just dragging my feet. Now listen, I know I'm looking at the time right now, and I think we have enough, we do have enough time for uh the Johnny Cash.

SPEAKER_04 53:40

I know it's a quick pivot from I mean he he you know he he again he was a bit of a dichotomy. Right. Um, you know, so he had a light side and a dark side. Um I feel like the song, if I'm gonna sing a song, it's gonna be a little bit of both, you know. Okay. Yeah. Um yeah. All right. So I'm just gonna adjust this a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

Yeah, do whatever you need to do and and what have you. Um so as promised, God is going to perform for us. Um again, this has been a very heavy and light conversation, which again, as you said, the dichotomy of Johnny Cash, it kind of plays into that.

SPEAKER_04 54:17

So um this is gonna be you can't think that he's, you know, he had an unbelievable sense of humor. In fact, if you want to see just what his sense of humor was, I highly suggest. Well, other than the fact he you can look up him doing his Elvis impersonation in about 1958, um, I suggest looking up um Johnny Cash getting into and out of his Ferrari. It's a video on YouTube, it's hilarious. Um first of all, shout out to to Gibson Guitars and this gorgeous uh Johnny Cash model SJ200. There's only 100 of them in the world. Um yeah. This is uh the part of the reason I brought it is um when my father passed, you know, I was left a bit of an inheritance that had nothing to do with the estate, and I used it to do things that I thought he would appreciate, which were things to further my career, buying some gear, buying some things that I'd always wanted. This is was a pipe dream that I was like, I'm never ever gonna be able to have that. And then once I realized you actually can do that, I said, okay, well, I'm doing it. Um this is a song that I've now decided I don't, I'm never gonna do a Johnny Cash show without this song in it. Uh it was he said it was the most personal song he ever wrote. Most people do not know it. Uh it was released much later in his life. Um, and he wrote it about essentially June helping him through his demons, his addiction, all of that. Um, and just kind of him coming out on the other side, but not really ever expecting that to maybe happen.

SPEAKER_00 56:02

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_04 56:03

And it's called uh Like a Soldier.

SPEAKER_03 56:12

With the twilight colors falling, and the evening lay in shadows, hidden memories come stealing from a mind, and I feel my own heart beating out, simple joy of living, and I wonder how I ever was that kind. But the wild road I was rambling was always out there calling, and you said a hundred times I should have died, but you reached down and touched me and lifted me up with you, so I believe it was a road I was meant to ride. I'm like a soldier getting over the war, I'm like a young man getting over his crazy days, like a bandit getting over his lawless ways. I don't have to do that anymore. I'm like a soldier getting over the war. There are nights that I don't remember, and pain that's been forgotten, and a lot of things I choose not to recall. There are faces that come to me in my darkest secret memories, faces that I wish would not come back at all. But in my dreams, parade of lovers from the other times and places, there's not one that matters now, no matter who. I'm just thankful for the journey, and that I've survived the battles, and that my spoils of victory is you. I'm like a soldier getting over the war. I'm like a young man getting over his crazy days, like a bandit getting over his lawless ways. Every day gets better than the day before. I'm like a soldier getting over the war.

SPEAKER_02 58:38

Oh my gosh, I'm like crying over here. That is beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 58:44

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 58:45

Oh my gosh. Yeah, I mean I wasn't expecting this moment.

SPEAKER_04 58:49

You know, he uh I will also put a again, I'm not paid for any of these things.

SPEAKER_05 58:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:54

Um, my dear friend Mark Stilper is the Johnny Cash and Carter family historian. He just came out with a book called The The Complete Johnny Cash. It's all all of the songs he ever wrote. All I mean, even if he wrote like a little, a little sentence of a something that never even turned into a song, uh, it has everything there. You can even see some of his handwritten poems, lyrics all over. Oh my god. Um, and that's one in the book that just, you know, it's it's it's pretty striking. Um and uh again, I just I I would if you're ever curious about his style, about like where some of that stuff comes from, uh that is a great place to start because you can see the poems that he wrote as like a seven-year-old kid all the way through to the last notes he was writing to June um after she passed when he when he couldn't even see what he was writing because he was he was nearly blind and couldn't really even hold a pen. It's it's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 59:50

I have to ask, how do you get through these songs without crying? Like they're like beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 59:56

Well, that one that one I think I'm used to now. Um, like I said, there are a couple that uh there's one that I base my solo show around that I it's very difficult. Um because I talk about I talk about mom and I talk about his parents, okay, and then I go into this song uh about mother, and it's um that it's called The Letter Edge in Black. It was written all 1897, um, but it's about um a guy being at home, the letter carrier comes up to his door, you know, knocks on the door, hands him a letter edge written in black, edged in black, and it's from his father saying, His mother has died. She wanted you to come home. I know we didn't get along, but she would really like you to be here to say goodbye to her. That's what the song is about. And I, you know, I put it in the show, you know, 10 years ago when it meant something to me, but it because it was a great song. Yeah. And now when I sing it, it it has a very different connotation. And and it now, even since my father has passed, it has another connotation. So yeah, I mean it's just there are certain ones you just kind of can't um I don't know, can't help but let your emotions come into it. I mean, I think we were talking about on the phone, and I said, you know, the theater is this place that we all come to be and do something else and to create another story and to tell someone else's story, and we tend to leave our you know, our baggage, our crap outside and not let it affect what we're doing, particularly if it is uh antithetical to what it is that we're doing. But sometimes we do use our our emotions to fuel that. And so it depends. You know, if it's a if it's a positive thing, I let those things run run free. If it's not, then I don't, you know. But like if I start crying during a song like that, it doesn't it's not necessarily going to be Scott Moreau is crying because he's singing a song about his mom. You can be interpreted as Johnny Cash is getting emotional thinking about his mother. And so to me, that that is as beneficial as as anything else.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

Well, I am so glad that you were willing to just open up and bring out the guitar. And I mean, there's probably mascara around.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:19

I'm trying, I'm trying to absolutely not.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:21

Well, you're it's the blotting, and I can blot very well. What can I say?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:25

Professional blotter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:26

Professional blotter.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:27

I like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:28

Oh, all right. Well, Scott, I I am just thank you. Thank you. Thank you for gracing us with your presence and your beautiful voice. My pleasure. And then if anybody wants to find out where you're performing, I mean they just look up your name. I'll put your name in your in the podcast description and just kind of.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:44

If you Google my name and Johnny Cash and you don't find me, there's something really wrong. But uh the best way to find me is uh either um on www.ultimatejohnnycash.com or same thing on Instagram. Uh you can follow me at Ultimate Johnny Cash. I have tour dates all the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:03

Uh so yeah Yeah, and it's definitely a show you don't want to miss because it is awesome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:08

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:08

Oh, all right. Well, thank you so much. We'll wave to this camera, say goodbye. Thank you everybody for joining us. Ah, and Johnny Cash. All right, bye, friends.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:18

Oh, oh my God. I'm like, I'm like sorry.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:23

That wasn't my intention.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:25

No, no, no, I know, I know it wasn't. I was just like, your voice is so good. I'm like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

Wow. How do you feel?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:38

You want to hear that live forever song?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:41

I kind of do. If they come in, they can come in, yeah. If you want to do it, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:46

That's not long.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

Sometimes I'll come in and say my time's over, but it should be fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:01

I'm gonna live forever. I'm gonna cross that river, I'm gonna catch tomorrow now. You're gonna wanna hold me, just like I always told you, you're gonna miss me when I'm gone. Nobody here will ever find me, and I will always be around just like the songs I leave behind me. I'm gonna live forever now. You fathers and you mothers, be good to one another. Just try to raise your children right. Don't let them feel forsaken, don't let the darkness take 'em, just lead them gently to the light. And when this world is gone asunder, and all the stars fall from the sky, remember someone really loves you, will live forever, you and I. I'm gonna live forever, I'm gonna cross that river, I'm gonna catch tomorrow now. You're gonna wanna hold me just like I always told you. You're gonna miss me when I'm gone. I'm gonna live forever, I'm gonna cross that river, I'm gonna catch tomorrow now.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:50

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:51

I'm adding this in the pod.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:56

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:00

I just played until they tell me to shut up.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:08

I was standing by my window yesterday morning without a thought of worry or regret when the postman when I saw the postman comin' down the pathway, he was bringing me a letter edged in black. Well he rang the bell and he whistled while he waited then he said good morning to you Jack But he never knew the sorrow that he brought me when he handed me that letter edged in black with trembling hand I took the letter from him, broke the seal and this is what it said Come home my boy your poor old father wants you Come home my boy your dear old mother's dead The last words that your mother ever uttered was Tell my boy I want him to come back My eyes are dim, my poor old heart is breaking and I'm writing you this letter edged in black with trembling See this is where my mental breaks the block starts happening It's okay Those angry words I wish I'd never spoken never you know I never meant them, don't you Jack?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:58

My eyes are dim, my poor old heart is breaking and I'm writing you this letter edged in black I hung my head in sorrow and insilence The sunshine of my life it all had and fled Since the postman brought that letter yesterday morning saying Come home my boy your dear old mother's dead May the angels bear me witness I am asking your forgiveness in this letter edged in blood wow that one is that's hard to remember all those songs though I can't even imagine you know yeah I mean I guess I've just always had that memory I mean I don't know it's never been an issue for me to remember things always are like oh my god how do you remember the words in that crazy long song which one the one with the town names in it areno Chicago Fargo Minnesota Buffalo Toronto Lindsay Wichita Tulsa Ottawa Oklahoma Tampa Panama Matama Lapalum Bangor Baltimore Salvador Amarillo Tocabilla Barranquilla Ampadilla I'm a killer but I have a friend who this is kind of hilarious and if she ends up watching this I'm not making fun of you I promise no it's fine to learn the song the learn the part of the song that she had to sing she had to picture the places on the map and when she would sing it oh my god in the show her eyes would go her eyes would go to where they were like on a world like on a globe um I mean hey if it works for you it works for you she never messed it up so that's funny I should let them know that we're done because they're probably looking at me like yeah I'm gonna put this in though this is this is some good stuff