Andrew Dillon watched the upright bassist, on stage in the spotlight with two vocalists, providing the hypnotic smolder and thump to the song “Fever” during a 2015 performance of “It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues” at New Stage Theatre in Jackson, Miss. Dillon, on bass guitar, was in the band, but he had passed up the instrumental role.
During auditions, New Stage asked if he could play upright bass, but the Jackson-native musician shied away from fully embracing the opportunity. Out of his comfort zone, he said. Then, for each day the show was in production, he received a nightly reminder of just what he had missed.
“(The song) was like a romance thing between two people, but the upright bass was almost like another character in the scene,” Dillon later told the Mississippi Free Press. “Once I heard the song, (I realized) it was really simple … I absolutely could have done that!”
Chris “Red” Blisset of New York, the person who basked in that limelight in Dillon’s stead, gave the Mississippian some showbiz advice that Dillon still remembers: “If a director asks you if you can do something, say you can do it and then figure out the rest later,” Blisset told him.
Fast forward to 2023, Dillon, as a featured performer in “Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash,” finally gets his theater spotlight at New Stage. The show is a unique musical tribute to the Man in Black, featuring more than two dozen of his classic hits, with performances launching on Tuesday, May 30, and continuing through June 11.
‘Nothing But Faith from the Get-Go’
As a key member in the ensemble cast, Andrew Dillon acts, sings and dances—“Nothing too intense,” he’s quick to point out regarding his relationship with choreography—and he plumbs the depths of his musical wheelhouse, often playing upright bass, bass guitar, fiddle and a bit of snare drum.
Red Blisset returns for this production, too, this time as both director and cast member in the show he calls “a concert with a concept.” This show marks the theater veteran’s eighth time
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