Music cue 1 – Intro music

Memphis, 1955. Johnny Cash is at Sun Records working with Sam Phillips selecting the two songs for his second 45 release. His first two singles, Hey Porter and Cry! Cry! Cry! hadn’t even been released yet, but Phillips was confident and wanted to have two more singles ready. Cash had one song he liked but was a bit hesitant to share. He’d been kicking it around for several years since his time stationed with the Air Force in Germany. The fact was he had lifted the tune and some of the lyrics almost wholesale from a popular song of the day, Crescent City Blues composed by Gordon Jenkins and recorded by Beverly Mahr from 1953. (I’m not a big fan of that song, so I won’t subject you to it here, but I will include it in the Spotify playlist for this episode). Cash had kept some of the original lyrics and written others based on a B movie he saw at the base movie theater. The movie’s title says all you really need to know it. It was called Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison. Even though it was not very good, the story of the incarcerated men seems to have spoken to Cash. When he played the song at Sun, Phillips wasn’t sold. It wasn’t the plagiarism that was the problem for Sam. It was the fact that it didn’t rock. So, Cash retooled it, upping the tempo and turning it into a rollicking, hard driving E blues number. That was it! Folsom Prison Blues became the A side of Cash’s second 45, along with So Doggone Lonesome on side B, released in January 1956. They made a good choice. The record was a massive hit. 

Most folks these days are probably more familiar with the version of Folsom Prison Blues from Cash’s seminal live album Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. That album was the first released live album of a prison concert and a high-water mark in 20^th century music as well as Cash’s career. It was quite an unusual record for it’s time. Live albums generally were not thought of as much more than an opportunity to repackage the studio recordings of popular songs. They weren’t generally considered works of art themselves. Additionally, this was a major music star working for a big record label, Columbia, recording an album not at a popular music venue like the Hollywood Bowl or Carnagie Hall, but at a maximum-security prison. So, how did this record come about, what did it do for Cash’s career? What is its legacy? Well, I’m Dr. Mountain and we will explore those questions on this episode, Episode 6, of Noise Gate Music History podcasts, music history for busy music lovers.

Music cue 2 – Intro music

Johnny Cash had a long career with many, many ups and downs. His was a career and life of extremes. By 1968, Cash had been a star for twelve years and was at that point desperate to pull himself out of a personal and professional gutter. His last few records were disappointing on pretty much every level, not least to himself. His first marriage had fallen apart. He hardly saw his four young daughters. He’d been very publicly arrested for public intoxication and disorderly conduct. He was chronically a no-show for his own concerts. He was seriously addicted to amphetamines and alcohol. Two things kept him going at this point: a much hoped for career resurgence and his romantic relationship with June Carter.

Folsom Prison is an imposing structure. Built in the 1880s by convict labor from great blocks of gray granite, it looks like nothing other than what it is, a maximum-security prison. Guard towers with elevated walkways housed guards with high-powered rifles watching for trouble. Massive iron doors and gates blocked entry and exit to the facility and demarcate areas within. This was a hard place, housing hard men who had led hard lives.

The photos taken on the day of Cash’s visit that day, January 13, 1968, show him in what seems to be a pensive, even somber mood. He looks bowed by some serious burden, looking more like a mourner at a funeral than one of the great performers of his generation about to put on the show of his life. 

The location itself might have had something to do with his appearance.  It’s fair to also say, however, that in those pictures we are looking at a man who knew this was a make-or-break moment. If the Folsom concert and accompanying album did not go well, if the nay-sayers at Columbia proved correct, his career might well be irretrievable. If it went well, he knew it could put him back at the top of the American music scene. It was a big gamble, and he would have to be the one to pull it off, or not. 

His record company, Columbia, was absolutely against producing a prison concert live album. Cash had been proposing the idea of a prison concert record for pretty much his whole time with Columbia and always received the same response, hell no. How would they market a recording of a performance in in front of hundreds of armed robbers, rapists, and murderers? The powers that be, probably including Cash’s long-time producer with Columbia, Don Law, saw it as too big a risk to associate their brand in any way with criminality and violence. By 1967, Cash was ready to move on from Law and work with a new producer that could push his creativity and was more sympatico with his outlook. That new producer was Bob Johnston. Johnston was a bit of a maverick and when Cash brought up the idea of the prison concert recording very early in their meetings, Law reached for the phone. Not to call the execs at Columbia, but to call Folsom and San Quintin and begin arrangements. The folks at Folsom responded first. By the time the bigwigs at Columbia found out it was too late to back out so they acquiesced, with the understanding that Cash and Johnston would be to blame if the event did not go well. 

This was not Cash’s first prison concert or even his fist prison concert at Folsom. He knew the energy, the pent-up energy, the potential energy, contained within a prison population. And he more than any other artist of his time could empathize with their situation and draw out and focus that energy. 

Let’s listen to two versions of Folsom Prison Blues back-to-back. First, we will hear the version from Cash’s first full-length album, Johnny Cash and His Hot and Blue Guitar. Right after we will go into the version recorded at Folsom on January 13, 1968.

Music cue 3 – Version of FPB off

Music cue 4 – 1968 Folsom prison released recording of FPB

From those first words, “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash” the inmates’ excitement leaps off the record. Cash was very thoughtful in his song selection, picking numbers he knew would speak to his very particular audience. Rather than just play all his hits, which would be the norm for a concert record, he left out some of his most popular songs like Walk the Line and Ring of Fire, selecting instead some less popular songs that would resonate with the Folsom inmates.

            Of course, starting off with Folsom Prison Blues was really the only choice to open the show and album. Cash and the Tennessee Three absolutely slay it. From the moment that little intro riff tore through the room, all doubts must have fallen away. On the album, when Cash gets to the line, “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” you hear the inmates hoot and holler and one of the main features of the album is a shared reveling in rebellion. Cash repeatedly pokes fun at authority from the prison guards (“they’re mean bastards ain’t they”) to the delicate sensibilities of the record company (“you can’t say Hell or Shit”). All of this highlights Cash’s connection to the inmates and none of it feels put on or artificial. One of Cash’s greatest attributes was his ability to empathize. He could inhabit the feeling of a song like few others and this album is a great example of that ability. He could also empathize deeply with his audience an again, the Folsom concert and album are models of human empathy in all its breadth and depth. 

            All right, enough talk, let’s listen to another rowdy number. This is Cocaine Blues, recorded live at Folsom.

Music Cue 5 – Cocaine Blues

            Though many of the songs focused on rebellion, not all were celebrations. There were several powerful explorations of the consequences of rebellion and living outside society and the law. The sadness, loneliness, despair,  disconnection from family and loves ones, the shame of disappointing oneself and one’s family were all familiar to Cash. Though he had never done hard time, he knew what it was liked to be handcuffed and tossed in jail. He knew addiction and the feeling of being out of control. He knew what it was like to fail and disappoint your family. 

So, let’s take a listen to a song more on that end of the spectrum. This is Send a Picture of Mother.

Music Cue 6 – Send a Picture of Mother

Cash only prepared one new song for the concert, but it was special. He’d started learning it only a day or so before, but was determined to include it in the show. The song was called Graystone Chapel and it was written by a Folsom inmate, Glen Sherley. Let’s listen to it first and then talk about it a bit. Here it is, Graystone Chapel, written by Glen Sherely and sung by Johnny Cash.

Music cue 7 – Graystone Chapel

In examining the empathy Cash felt for the Folsom inmates, we are inevitably led back to his faith. Cash believed that even self-imposed suffering, even earned suffering, was worthy of grace, forgiveness, and the possibility of redemption. His inclusion of Graystone Chapel and his relationship with Glen Sherley illustrate this as well as anything in Cash’s life. 

After the concert, Glen Sherely met with Cash for a few minutes. Sherely was grateful and Cash was gracious. On leaving Folsom at the end of the day, Cash let it be known that he wanted to help Sherley get parole. Not long after, Sherely was granted parole and began working as a song writer and performer. Sheley’s story does not end happily, but for more on that, you will need to listen to the supplemental material for this episode.

Graystone Chapel is a good song, not great by any means, but it’s the context and backstory that make it a highlight of the album. No matter how many times I listen to it, I am struck by Cash’s words of introduction. The point where he says, “I hope we do it justice, Glen” gets me every time. I always hear this from Glen Sherley’s point of view. Here I am, a convict at a maximum security prison (he was in for armed robbery, by the way), and Johnny freakin’ Cash is not only singing one of my songs, but treating me with respect and dignity as a man and as a talented songwriter. It is that empathy and basic human respect that is the great and timeless message of this album for me. I never get the sense that Cash would deny that the prisoners at Folsom have done terrible, harmful, hurtful things, but only that they, like himself, like all of us, are more than those actions. You really cannot ultimately separate Cash’s treatment of the prisoners and Glen Sherley in particular, from his faith. I am not a Christian and have no axe to grind on that score, but I do see faith as grounding Cash’s interest in the At Folsom album and concert. Yes, it revitalized his career but it did so because his genuine empathy for those in spiritual pain, a group that often included him, came through so clearly.

No doubt another part of Cash’s revitalized career and personal life came from his relationship with June Carter. Shortly before the Folsom concert, Cash’s divorce from his first wife and mother of his four daughters, Vivian, was finalized. There would be plenty of ups and downs personally and professionally in the years to come, but Johnny and June’s relationship of love and support saw them both to the end of their days. 

June joined Cash on stage at Folsom for a duet. Here is Jackson sung by Johnny Cash and June Carter (soon to be June Carter Cash) live on stage at Folsom Prison.

Music cue 8 – Jackson

I’ve already said that At Folsom was a hit album and that it revitalized Cash’s flagging career moving into the 1970s, but let’s unpack that a bit. Released on May 6, 1968, At Folsom reached number one on the Country Music chart and number 13 on the national chart. The live version of Folsom Prison Blues was a top 40 single hit, the first for Cash since Stand By Your Man 4 years earlier. By 2003 the album had sold nearly 3 ½ million copies. The success of At Folsom led to another live prison album, At San Quentin, which, though it lacks to my mind the energy and interesting backstory of At Folsom, was another massive hit and made it to #1 on the US pop chart. As a result of all the renewed popularity, ABC gave Cash his own television variety show. The critical reception has remained strongly positive, with Guitar World magazine naming At Folsom the greatest live album ever, Rolling Stone including it in the top 200 records of all time, just to highlight a few accolades. 

Whenever something is that successful, imitators won’t be far behind. Since At Folsom, many performers have recorded live albums in prisons. We don’t have time to get into all of them here, but a couple excellent examples include B.B. King’s Live at the Cook County Jail from 1971 and John Lee Hooker’s Live at Soledad Prison from 1972. 

I’m gonna try something a little different with this story. There is quite a bit more that I could have included here but chose not to for the sake of keeping the episodes of a reasonable, easy to listen to in a sitting, length. So, I will soon post what will essentially be footnotes to this story, where I go into further depth and detail on some of the points just hinted at in the main episode. If your thirst for understanding At Folsom is quenched with this episode itself, fantastic. Other topics will come soon. If, however, you want to get into more interesting details, check out the “Folsom Footnotes” episode, also coming soon.

That’s all for now. Thank you very much for listening. Please check out our music geekery merch store on Etsy at Noise Gate Productions for some podcast related tshirts, mugs, totes, etc. We’ll sign-off with Carl Perkins’ version of Blue Suede Shoes, recorded as the opening song for the Folsom concert and released on the expanded edition of At Folsom in 2003. So, until next time, this is Dr. Mountain for Noise Gate, wishing you good luck and good listening!

Music Cue 8 – Blue Suede Shoes