Johnny Cash - Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison 1968 CBS - CS 9639 - Amazon.com Music By kresnels on May 9, 2001 Format: Audio CD The impact of Johnny Cash's proto bad-boy on country, blues, and rock is inestimable, which doesn't even speak to the fact that the man is a great entertainer. If you are a serious music fan, your musical education isn't complete without Live At Folsom Prison. This isn't a singles record, this is an album; you put it on to hear the whole thing. The performance itself is tight and structured, just like the venue. The recording is especially atmospheric - the reverb bouncing off the concrete walls, the sounds of doors slamming in the background, and an interruption by a prison announcement. Cash and the band (which includes the brilliant Luther Perkins and Carl Perkins - think Blue Suede Shoes) seem unflappable and completely at ease, belying the actual tension of the gig.

This reissue restores the original recording to its raw, warts-and all-feel, in direct contrast to the sanitized version that I grew up with: four songs have been restored to the set due to increased available length, plus Cash's interaction with the audience and the profanity (tasteful by today's standards) has been re-introduced, revealing the incredibly gritty nature of this record. Plus, the packaging is incredible: the handwritten note from Cash, describing why he felt compelled to make this album, the liner notes, and an appreciation from Steve Earle round out the package to create not merely a reissue, but a full restoration. If you are hungry for something more substantial than the latest Clapton disc or Zeppelin reissue, you won't regret a minute of this terrific album.

Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison - Amazon.com Music By Gonzo on June 15, 2013 Format: Audio CD|Verified Purchase This is a review of: At Folsom Prison Legacy Edition (2CD/1 DVD) Amazon, you may want to give this special Legacy Edition its own review thread as it stands the comments are comming from the Vinyl, mp3, Audio CD AND At Folsom Prison Legacy Edition (2CD/1 DVD) altogether. The CDs of which I write have more content than the original vinyl and the remasterd version CD of the that Album. What many people don't know is that on that day at Folsom Prison Johnny Cash gave two concerts: one at 09:40 AM and another at 12:40 PM. The 09:40 concert is the one put on the album most of us are familiar with. During the 12:40 concert you can tell right out that Johnny Cash had just given a previous concert as his voice is tired and he made more slip-ups--but still a good listen I think.

"The show at Folsom in 1968 was a long one and I always thought that the the songs that were not on the album were as worthy of being heard as the ones that were." --Johnny Cash: June, 1999 (Taken from enclosed booklet of the Legacy Edition). If you have the remastered uncensored Audio CD of this concert you should know that this Legacy Edition has in addition to the extra tracts a little more of Johnny Cash chatting and making remarks. What I enjoyed most is the 2 Hour and Ten Minute DVD. It is a Documentary and not a live film of the concert though you get plenty of live shots bw/color from other Johnny Cash concerts and audio snips of live interviews given by Cash commenting on the start of his career. Marshal Grant talking about the beginnings of The Tennesse Two and the old-times is priceless! W.S. Holland also puts in his memories of the early times with Johnny Cash. There are also interviews with Merle Haggard, Rosanne Cash, Marty Stuart and former inmates who saw the concert. The enclosed 39 page booklet includes photos by the Folsom Prison Concert photographer Jim Marshal --up to now unpublished.

All in all I think this piece of history is a steal at ca. $28.00. By Tibbie TOP 500 REVIEWER on September 4, 2014 Format: Audio CD|Verified Purchase what can you say about this? ITs a timeless classic and I love it. I had to drive from Arizona to Utah and that drive is about 14 hours. The weather was bad and I was bored--alone---stretches of nothingness where there is no cell phones or radio stations go for miles and hours. I was able to pop this in my cd player and while I heard every song many many times, it did make the time go. I appreciate hearing the prisoners getting some entertainment. In those days, prisoners were real criminals. They were not in prison for possession of a little marijuana or heroin like today. These guys in this era were bank robbers, armed robbers, kidnappers etc. They were not good people, but they still are humans and still deserve some decency from time to time. Johnny Cash obviously believed that as well, and worked very hard in several prison concerts to lift the spirits of these guys. Great man, great music.

By Steven Sly on December 12, 2014 Format: Audio CD|Verified Purchase I will be honest. I am not a country music fan, in fact about the closest thing I have to country in my collection is Jimmy Buffett. Lately I have been on a live album kick and kept seeing âAt Folsom Prisonâ near the top of just about every âbest live albums of all timeâ out there. So, I decided to take the plunge and pick it up. All I can say is wow, this is an outstanding piece of work from the man in black and I really love the whole thing. Cash tells stories, in a live environment mostly about prison live (and death) and men who have taken the wrong path in life. There are a couple of humorous throw away tracks (âEgg Sucking Dogâ, âFlushed From The Bathroom Of Your Heartâ), but obviously the convicts got a kick out of them when it was recorded, so it does not detract too much. Every other song on here is a gem, being sung in an environment that completely fits the material.

Cashâs band is top notch as well, with the Perkins brothers providing more than adequate back up instrumentation. June Carter even makes an appearance on a scorching version of âJacksonâ. All I can say is what an album. It gives me a whole new appreciation for Johnny Cash, and artist who I have overlooked for the most part. By Timohuatl on August 20, 2013 Format: Audio CD|Verified Purchase So over the last five years or so I've become a bigger and bigger fan of the man in black. He has an amazing range of songs and I appreciate his ability to evolve during his career. What really hits me on this album is its concept. I've heard most of these songs many times, but I never really appreciated what the context of the album meant and how much the songs belong in that context. Amazing! His bond with the audience is palpable and his emotional intensity is only stronger than when you hear the songs individually. For instance, his version of John Henry, a song everyone covers at some point in their career, is unmatched when he's singing in front of a bunch of prisoners. In the social context, I also appreciate this album.

If you think of the great prison movies and books of the era (Papillon, Cool Hand Luke, Gulag Archipelago, Midnight Express, Discipline and Punishment, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the Great Escape, etc.) Johnny Cash's contribution to the genre is significant. By Lexator on February 21, 2013 Format: MP3 Music|Verified Purchase Seriously, if you only buy one Johnny Cash album in your entire life, and I cannot imagine such a dreadful fate, this is THE ONE. Cash's career was ebbing when this was recorded and despite his label's lack of enthusiasm for promoting the album, this was the turnaround that not only sent his career upward but outward as well. When "Folsom" came out the Man in Black sound crossed boundaries sending Cash on to musical icon status. As if Johnny wouldn't be enough, as bonus you get: June Carter, Carl Perkins, The Statler Brothers and joining in. OK. Don't buy this. Go ahead and spend the rest of your life wondering what might have been. Or do buy the album and get yourself just a little closer to self-actualization.

Inside Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison : NPR Inside Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Embed Embed Inside Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Inside Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Embed Embed Johnny Cash inside California's Folsom Prison, 1968 Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Hulton Archive/Getty Images Live at Folsom Prison Compare Gene Beley's recording, from the audience, of Cash's 1968 performance at Folsom Prison, with the official recordings, from the album, "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison".

Johnny Cash in Concert at Folsom Prison - 01/13/1968 Toggle more options Embed Embed <iframe src="" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Folsom Prison Blues Embed Embed <iframe src="" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Johnny Cash in Concert at Folsom Prison - 01/13/1968 Toggle more options Embed Embed <iframe src="" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Greystone Chapel Embed Embed <iframe src="" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Johnny Cash in Concert at Folsom Prison - 01/13/1968 Toggle more options Embed Embed <iframe src="" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Cocaine Blues Embed Embed <

iframe src="" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Johnny Cash in Concert at Folsom Prison - 01/13/1968 Toggle more options Embed Embed <iframe src="" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> At Folsom Prison in 1968, Johnny Cash gave a concert that would later famously give his fans a peek inside prison walls.

Gene Beley was at the prison the day the record, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, was made. A friend had invited the young Ventura Star Free Press reporter to the concert, and Beley decided to bring along a tape recorder. Beley's recording is familiar, but it's from an entirely new perspective: that of the audience. In an excerpt from his essay about the event, published this fall in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Beley recalls the night before the concert: We arrived at the El Rancho Motel and checked in. Cash was nervous about the weather in Nashville. He feared that the snow and ice would make it impossible for Carl Perkins, the Statler Brothers, the Tennessee Three, and Columbia's A&R man, Bob Johnston, to fly to Sacramento. So he called Nashville and found they had left and were laid over in San Francisco. While waiting for the others, we all met in one of our rooms. Reverend Gressett said he had a favor to ask of John. Article continues after sponsorship "Johnny, I want you to hear a song written by Glen Sherley, an inmate in Folsom, serving five to life for armed robbery.

You've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to tell you about it but I thought if you could mention tomorrow that you've heard the tape, it would please that ol' boy who wrote it." "Does anyone have a tape recorder?" Cash asked. "I do," I replied, and went to get the reel-to-reel Sony recorder that I had brought to record the concert for research purposes. "All right, this is a take on 'Greystone Chapel,'" a deep voice, similar to Cash's own voice, said on the tape. Then the singing began: Inside the walls of prison, my body may be, But the Lord has set my soul free... As the lyrics filled the room, accompanied by a bass beat from the prisoner's guitar, Cash's usual straight-faced, deep-creased cheeks began changing to a smile, with his eyes glowing, radiating enthusiasm. There's a Greystone chapel here at Folsom, A house of worship in this den of sin. You wouldn't think God had a place at Folsom, But he's saved the soul of many lost men.

When the tape was finished, Cash said, "This has got to be recorded as a single, and I want to record it tomorrow on the album during the show." Cash began scribbling the words down in a notebook and tried singing the phrase, while beating out the rhythm with one hand on his knee, the other hand tapping a pen on the desk. That evening Cash was dressed in a blue jumpsuit and cowboy boots when his A&R man Bob Johnston and the other performers arrived. "Do you ever work on a stool?" Johnston asked Cash. "Yes, that's what I plan to do," Cash said. "Are you going to have someone introduce you?" "I thought I'd come out and introduce myself and sing." "Great!" exclaimed Johnston. "Come out and say, 'I'm Johnny Cash!' They'll go wild!" Reprinted with permission from 'The Virginia Quarterly Review,' Winter 2005 Related NPR Stories Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison: making of a masterpiece - Telegraph Rock and Jazz Music Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison: making of a masterpiece The album 'Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison' has sold three million copies and counting, but its recording in 1968 happened against the odds.

By Thomas H Green 2:58PM GMT 14 Jan 2009 During his 71 years, Johnny Cash made many comebacks. The biggest, however, was undoubtedly the 1968 live album 'Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison.' Recorded in front of an audience of nearly 2000 convicted criminals in a high security prison, it cemented his outlaw reputation and status as champion of the downtrodden. Containing definitive versions of many Cash classics, it's a masterpiece that's sold consistently ever since, regularly cropping up on 'all time greatest' lists and passing the three million sales mark, and is now about to get another lease of life with the release of a new edition complete with DVD that tells the fascinating story behind the making of this landmark album. By the late sixties Cash's career appeared to be on the wane. He was still a live draw but an addiction to amphetamines had impacted disastrously on his professional life and he was determined to clean up - also prompted by his relationship with future wife June Carter Cash, of country legends The Carter Family.

Cash wanted to record a live album at Folsom State Prison, the high security California penitentiary, opened in 1880, whose prisoners made the state's license plates. The prison radio DJ was a huge fan and Cash had already played a successful concert there in 1966. His record label, Columbia, however, was not keen. "Record companies don't like live albums because they can't go back and edit," explains Lou Robin, Cash's manager, "They spend a lot of money sending out recording trucks and sound people then if something goes wrong they're stuck with the expenses." Nonetheless, Cash had a powerful champion, Bob Dylan producer Bob Johnstone, who made sure the recording got the green light. Thus at 9.40am on January 13th 1968 in Folsom's Dining Hall 2, after two days of rehearsals, the first of two consecutive shows began. Regular support acts Carl Perkins and The Statler Brothers opened then Cash, backed by his Tennessee Three, was off and running.

He began with 'Folsom Prison Blues' but, prisoners were unwilling to vocally support sentiments that might cause them trouble with the warders so the cheers that greet the famous line "I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die" were dubbed on later by Johnstone. June Carter took the stage for a couple of numbers, including an ebullient version of the couple's trademark duet, 'Jackson', and the show concluded with 'Greystone Chapel', a song about Folsom's church by inmate Glen Sherley, imprisoned for bank robbery, that the prison chaplain had given Cash on tape the previous evening. Sherley leapt up from the front rows, amazed. Cash shook his hand and said, "I hope I do your song justice." Related Articles Man in Black has no regrets 13 Sep 2003 Once the album was ready, culled primarily from the day's first set, Columbia was still not interested in promoting it. Psychedelia and West Coast rock ruled, and they didn't think rough-hewn country blues would sell. The public, however, was enamoured and the album took off.

More than just a hit, it crystallised the black-clad outlaw persona central to Cash's image, and undoubtedly contributed to ABC's decision to offer him a TV series that led to his renewed success in the seventies. It also began his involvement with prison reform. He played many more institutions, revisiting Folsom in 1977, and releasing the best-selling 'Johnny Cash At San Quentin' in 1969, and later a live album from a Swedish prison. Cash took a particular interest in the Folsom songwriter Glen Sherley, providing him with top Nashville session musicians to record an album 'Live At Vacaville' in 1971 when he was still a prisoner. Cash eventually persuaded the Governor of California to release Sherley into his custody and Sherley joined the Cash roadshow but it didn't last. "I found Sherley to be deeply troubled," recalls Robin, "In prison I guess he was one of the top dogs in the pecking order, but he found it hard to adjust to the outside world." Sherley vanished from the limelight, began seriously abusing drugs and shot himself in 1978.

Cash paid for his funeral but increasingly felt that his prison crusade, despite meetings with American presidents, was going nowhere. He turned his attention instead to the plight of American Indians. "I think he stopped going to prisons because it was just too much, it was a burden," says his daughter Rosanne on the DVD that accompanies the new 'Legacy Edition' of the album, "He was a real man with grave faults and great genius and beauty in him but he wasn't this guy who could save you or anyone else." Michael Streissguth astutely makes the point in his book 'Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison: The Making Of A Masterpiece' that Cash's album, full of lawless underdog tales, is an edgier, more genuinely socially concerned and rebellious sixties album than all the sonic showboating and psychedelic hedonism of The Beatles and Beach Boys, yet it's often overlooked by critics due to country's uncool image. "Psychedelic music had its place and Johnny was always aware of the music around him," ventures Robin, "which is, I think, why he prevailed through the years. He absorbed something from the mood of the country but what he did wasn't like anything else.

It wasn't cowboy music, it wasn't like the early country of Tex Ritter and Gene Autry. He was kind of an outlaw, basically, a storyteller who had empathy for anyone who took a misstep and was trying to get their life back on track." It's true; when Cash sings, "Early one morning when making the rounds, I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down," on 'Cocaine Blues' he inhabits the troubadour persona with a wry dark humour that's universally captivating. He was one of the greatest popular musicians of the last century and the reappearance of 'At Folsom Prison' is a reminder of the 'Man In Black' in his very prime.

The three disc 'Legacy Edition' of 'Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison' is out January 26th containing both live sets and a DVD based on Michael Streissguth's book 'Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison: The Making Of A Masterpiece' Johnny Cash records a live album in the cafeteria of Folsom Prison Johnny Cash records a live album in the cafeteria of Folsom Prison by jessica-rayside Folsom State Prison was opened in 1880 as the first maximum security prison in the nation since the California Gold Rush. Located along the American River, this prison is California’s second oldest penitentiary and the world’s first jail with electricity. It took approximately two years to build, and its 4×8 feet cells only contain air holes on the cell doors with 6 inch eye slots. Johnny Cash empathized with inmates and started holding free concerts at various prisons. On this day, January 13th, in 1968 Johnny Cash held a concert at Folsom State Prison to debut his new album. “Folsom Prison Blues” a single from his album charted high on both the Billboard Country and Pop Charts.

The single also won Cash a Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. From Cash’s concert in the cafeteria he found inmate Glen Sherley, a singer and song-writer who later joined Cash on road shows and other performances. Today’s History 1968 - At Folsom Prison - FanticMotor Select Page 1968 – At Folsom Prison On 13 January 1968, the country singer Johnny Cash recorded a live album, “At Folsom Prison”, in the maximum secure prison of Folsom, California. The inmates show great respect for Cash and his work. Cash was the first who had the idea to do a free concert in a prison, going against the will of his record company. It will become one of the best-selling albums of all the history of rock.

Skills Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash | Song Info | AllMusic Folsom Prison Blues google+ Song Review by Bill Janovitz The remarkable accomplishment of Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" is its success in eliciting sympathy for the lonely, cold-hearted prisoner who "shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die." Riding a chugga-chugga train rhythm, the song gives voice to the frustrations of a condemned man sentenced to life in prison. Recorded for Sun records, the song was in the country Top Five in 1956, though Cash had written it while in the Air Force somewhere before 1954. "Folsom Prison Blues" follows the traditional symbol of the train whistle, as Hank Williams wrote about in "(I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle" (1951). That song tracks a man following the siren call of the rails, finding trouble along the way, and getting sent to jail: "All alone I bear the shame/I'm a number, not a name/I heard that lonesome whistle blow" (Williams/Davis).

Cash's protagonist is already locked away, imagining life going on outside the prison walls: "I bet there's rich folks eating in a fancy dining car/They're probably drinking coffee and smoking big cigars/But I know I had it coming, I know I can't be free/But those people keep on moving/And that's what tortures me." As the audience often confuses the singer with the song, "Folsom Prison Blues" was one of the tunes that -- along with his status as a musician that fell in between rockabilly, folk, and country genres -- led to Cash's reputation as a country music outlaw, the "Man in Black" who wrote about society's dispossessed castaways. "Folsom Prison Blues" rightly takes its place among the folk/country lexicon of prison songs. As such, it has become folk/country classic, a standard with countless cover versions. Among the best: Flatt and Scruggs play up the song's rowdy bluegrass elements on the 1996-released 1964-1969, Plus box set.

On the Genuine Basement Tapes (1992 release), Bob Dylan and the Band inject some of the Highway 61 Revisited-like blues; and Jerry Reed Lord, Mr. Ford (1973) offers an unexpectedly funky reading of the song -- if ever there was such a thing as country-funk, it would have to sound something like this cross between the Bar-Kays and Waylon Jennings. But the finest renditions of the "Folsom Prison Blues" remain Cash's own live recordings from 1968's At Folsom Prison and 1969's At San Quentin. These highly energized, in-prison performances feature prisoners hooting in approval at that chilling line "But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die." Appears On Johnny Cash and his prison reform campaign - BBC News BBC News Johnny Cash and his prison reform campaign By Danny Robins BBC World Service, Arkansas 23 January 2013 Read more about sharing. Close share panel US country music star Johnny Cash was well-known for his activism on prisoners' rights - but what impact did he actually have on the prison system?

On 26 July 1972, three grizzled-looking men dressed uneasily in suits gave evidence at a US Senate subcommittee on prison reform. Two of the men were former inmates of some of the toughest prisons in the US - the third was the country and western singer, Johnny Cash. Cash's famous live albums recorded at Folsom Prison and San Quentin are the stuff of music legend - likely to feature on any critic's list of defining albums of the 1960s. But it's much less well-known that these were only two of many prison concerts Cash played over the course of almost 30 years. Fitting the gigs in around his relentless touring schedule, the "Man in Black" performed for inmates all over the US, always unpaid, and in the process, became a passionate and vocal spokesman for prisoners' rights. "He always identified with the underdog," says Tommy Cash, Johnny's youngest brother. "He identified with the prisoners because many of them had served their sentences and had been rehabilitated in some cases, but were still kept there the rest of their lives.

He felt a great empathy with those people." The roots of Cash's empathy lie as far back as 1953, when as a 21-year-old radio operator in the US Air Force, he saw the film Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison and was inspired to write a song. Johnny Cash Born in 1932 in Arkansas to a farming family Worked at a car plant, in the US Air Force and as a salesman before music career began in 50s Sold over 90 million records Nicknamed "Man in Black" because of dark clothes - it was also the title of a 1971 album Honoured in the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Died in 2003 aged 71 More on Johnny Cash Folsom Prison Blues, released two years later, after Cash had signed to Sun Records, turned the young singer into a star. The song, and in particular the now-notorious line "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die," was sung with such raw menace that many assumed Cash knew what he was talking about.

"There's people today that you can talk to and they will believe that he actually did that," says WS "Fluke" Holland, Johnny's larger-than-life former drummer. "Johnny Cash shot a man to watch him die. He was a mean dude," he chuckles then shakes his head. "The only time he was in prison is when we played in them." This is one of the ironies of Cash's prison reform crusade. The very thing that made convicts connect with him, and US senators hang on his every word - the air of authenticity that stemmed from the belief he had served hard time himself - was in reality a misconception. "Cash had been behind bars," says his biographer Michael Streissguth. "But these were one-night stays in jail after drunk and disorderly arrests." His popularity, fuelled by the desperado image, made him a refreshing antidote to the clean-cut pop stars of the era. Cash did little to dispel the growing myth around him. One result was that he began to receive invitations to perform in prisons. He played his first prison concert in 1957 at the Huntsville State Prison in Texas. Many more followed.

The unique energy of these appearances was captured in 1968 on the At Folsom Prison recording. The album cemented Cash's outlaw image and reignited his career, which had been floundering in the mid-60s as he battled drug addiction. Columbia Records, which had only reluctantly agreed to Cash's request to record at the prison and then half-heartedly marketed the release, was taken aback. But Cash had undeniably caught the public mood. The growing civil rights movement had put the thorny issue of how to deal with America's huge prison population firmly on the agenda. Find out more Danny Robins was reporting for a two-part documentary on BBC World Service , Johnny Cash and the Forgotten Prison Blues Browse the documentary archive "In the 1960s in America, there was a growing realisation that prisons were ineffective," says Streissguth. "They were merely training inmates to be better criminals. So the recidivism rate, people coming back to incarceration, was very high." Cash, an ardent believer in the power of rehabilitation over punishment, became the go-to voice for the media on this new hot topic.

"I think Cash had a feeling that somehow he had been endowed with this fame in order to do something with it, and one of the ways he could do something with it was talking about prison reform," says Streissguth, who also believes Cash's deeply-held religious beliefs were a factor in his championing of the cause. "He connected with the idea that a man could be redeemed." If American prisons were failing, nowhere was this more true than in Cash's home state of Arkansas. By 1970, the entire state penal system had been declared "unconstitutional" by a federal judge, after a series of scandals throughout the 60s involving the physical and sexual abuse of inmates, torture, inadequate living conditions and the outdated and corrupt "trustee system". "Trustees were prisoners guarding other prisoners," says Colin Woodward from the UALR Center for Arkansas History and Culture. "It really echoed the way people worked under slavery. Under slavery a lot of the time the slave drivers were actually slaves themselves and that's what's replicated here." Instruments of torture The "Tucker Telephone" was used to torture prisoners in Arkansas. It was an old-fashioned phone with a battery, wires and clips attached.

"One clip was always attached to the toe," says Joellen Maack, curator at the Old State House Museum. "The other was usually attached to his private parts. The warden would crank the phone and it would deliver an electrical charge." A leather strap was also used to punish prisoners. At the time, it was thought prisoners "were beyond the pale, and they could be treated any way they wished," says Bobby Roberts, an expert on prison history. "They had no rights." Badges, Bandits and Bars Clearly, a system where armed prisoners policed their fellow inmates in the absence of any civilian guards was massively open to abuse. "It was the closest thing to hell this side of hell," says Daniel Merry, a folk singer in his own right, as he remembers life in Cummins, then the worst of Arkansas's prisons and arguably one of the worst in the world at that time. Merry, now in his 60s, was sent to Cummins for eight months in 1969 for the crime of marijuana possession. "I'd say life down there on a daily basis was pretty scary," he says. "I seen a lot of inmates get killed.

One of their favourite ways was to give you what they call a 'blanket party'. When you go to sleep, a bunch of old things run up and throws a blanket over you and sticks a bunch of homemade knives in you." When Johnny Cash and his touring roadshow arrived to perform at Cummins in April 1969, it must have seemed like a rare ray of light to inmates such as Daniel Merry. Cash came at the invitation of Winthrop Rockefeller, a scion of the wealthy American family, who had been elected state governor in 1966 with a mandate to overhaul the corrupt and abusive prison system. Image caption Governor Rockefeller working the crowd at Cummins Rockefeller was the first-ever Republican governor of Arkansas. Cash was from a family of Democrats, but saw something he liked in Rockefeller and joined him in 1968 on his re-election campaign trail, playing concerts and promoting their mutual call for reform. By the time of the Cummins concert, Cash was close to the peak of his career.

In February 1969 he had recorded the follow-up to Folsom Prison, Live at San Quentin, which would go on to sell even better than its predecessor, and ABC had just commissioned the weekly Johnny Cash Show which would turn him into a prime time TV star. As well as singing for the prisoners, Johnny used the platform of the concert, which was being filmed for local TV, to put his money where his mouth was, offering to donate $5,000 (£3,000) of his own money to build a prison chapel - and publically challenging Governor Winthrop Rockefeller to match his donation. "Old Winthrop, that day he wrote a cheque for five grand and put it in the chapel fund," smiles Daniel Merry, savouring the memory. Cummins today is a very different place to the "dark and evil world" a federal judge declared unconstitutional in 1970. It's a modern prison focused on reforming inmates and preparing them for a return to society. The chapel for which Cash had campaigned so passionately is one of the lasting legacies, not only of Cash's visit to Cummins but of his entire prison reform crusade.

It is durable concrete evidence of Cash's interest in and commitment to the men he met behind bars. Wilson Banks, the present day chaplain tells me there are still two or three lifers at Cummins who were there over 40 years ago when the Man in Black came to visit. "They say that he touched their lives." Cash's conversations with the men he met at Cummins clearly touched him too. At the 1972 US Senate hearing, Cash relayed stories of some of the worst abuses he had heard of on his prison visits, including the harrowing tale of a 15-year-old boy who died of injuries caused by his rape at an Arkansas prison. What's the picture in prisons today? 2.2 million people are in prison in the US It has the highest prison population rate in the world - 716 per 100,000.

The rate has risen sharply since the 1980s More than $50bn (£30bn) is spent a year to cut the rates of re-offending More than four in 10 offenders return to prison within three years Recidivism rates vary substantially - they are falling in some states and rising in others Pew Center on the States Former inmate Daniel Merry says he remembers the boy and there were "many more like him". Cash not only outlined to the senators on Capitol Hill what he thought was wrong with the American penal system, he also told them how he believed it could be improved. His proposals included the separation of first-timers and hardened criminals, the reclassification of offences to keep minor offenders out of prison, a focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment, and counselling to prepare convicts for the outside world and reduce the possibility of them reoffending. At a time when countries around the world are still wrestling with the question of how to handle those they incarcerate, many of the issues Cash raised that day feel just as relevant today. The fact that we are still debating them 40 years later suggests Cash failed. But did he?

Image caption Cash met President Nixon after testifying to the Senate on prison reform The sweeping reforms he advocated to politicians may not have come into force in his lifetime, and some have still not been achieved even now, but, using the power of his celebrity, he took the debate from politicians' offices and the inside pages of broadsheet newspapers, into public hearts and minds. Cash himself said during the US Senate hearing, "people have got to care for prison reform to come about". His greatest legacy is that he made people care, through his public statements, but most powerfully and effectively, through his music. For the average person, listening to one of Cash's prison albums, with their songs of prison life, interspersed with convicts' shouts, warders' tannoy announcements and rattling keys, was to be transported into a world that was, until then, largely unknown or ignored. It's unlikely the changes at Cummins and other American prisons - and the push towards a view of imprisonment that tempers punishment with rehabilitation - would have come about without this shift in public perception. Media captionJohnny Cash on stage at San Quentin State Prison Cash successfully humanised the prison population and gave them a voice.

He had a unique ability to get inside the heads of these forgotten and ignored men and understand the problems facing them - the roar from the inmate audience that can be heard on Live at San Quentin when he launches into the provocative angry title track is testimony to this. Perhaps Cash's impact is best summed up in the words of Senator Quentin N Burdick, one of the men he addressed at the US Senate in 1972. Having heard Cash's testimony, Burdick said, quite simply: "We need more Johnny Cashs, I guess." Danny Robins was reporting for a two-part Your World documentary for BBC World Service: Johnny Cash and the Forgotten Prison Blues. You can listen to the part one , and part two on iPlayer. You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on Facebook This Day in Music Spotlight: Johnny Cash Goes to Prison This Day in Music Spotlight: Johnny Cash Goes to Prison January 13, 1968 01.13.2011 Special thanks to ThisDayinMusic.com . Johnny Cash had his share of troubles and vices in his lifetime, but he never did prison time. Despite this, nobody in music history is more associated with the clink than the Man in Black.

It’s interesting that Cash is much more tied to the struggles and frustrations of prison life than the legions of pop, rock and country music stars who have actually had to serve a sentence. The legendary country singer first learned of prison life – particularly, life in Folsom State Prison – through the movies. He was a member of the U.S. Air Force Security Service in 1953, when his unit watched the film Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison. It was that movie that inspired Cash to write one of his early songs, “Folsom Prison Blues,” in which he imagined what a prisoner felt like. After signing with Sun Records, “Folsom Prison Blues” became Cash’s second single – a #1 country hit and a Top 40 pop hit in 1955. Although Cash had never been in prison, he apparently captured the feeling of being incarcerated perfectly. The song became very popular with those doing time, who wrote letters to the country star thanking him for writing the tune and sometimes asking him to come perform at their prisons. By 1957, he obliged some inmates, by performing at Huntsville State Prison.

The event went over so well that Cash continued this practice, playing concerts at prisons around the U.S. He had the idea for recording a live album at one such show, although the proposal was rejected by the country executives at Columbia Records. In the mid-’60s, Cash and Columbia each went through some difficult times. Toward the end of ’67, Cash was kicking his drug habit and seeking to turn his career around. Meanwhile, there was a shake-up at country portion of Columbia, leaving Bob Johnson (best-known for his work with Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel) as Cash’s producer at the label. Johnny dusted off his old idea for doing a concert album at a prison and Johnson jumped at the idea. He contacted both San Quentin and Folsom Prison, and the people at Folsom were the first to reply. In early January of 1968, all of the performers that were going to be involved in the concerts made a trip to nearby Sacramento, California, to get settled and rehearse for a couple of days. The lineup included Cash, his wife June Carter Cash, his usual backing band The Tennessee Three (Marshall Grant, Luther Perkins and W.S.

Holland), Carl Perkins and the Statler Brothers – along with Johnny’s dad Ray and producer Johnson. The goals for the practice sessions weren’t just to hone the ensemble’s live sound, but to learn a new song. Cash had agreed to perform “Greystone Chapel,” written by Folsom inmate Glen Sherley. On the morning of January 13, everyone traveled to Folsom to perform two shows – one at 9:40 a.m. and one at 12:40 p.m. – just in case the first one didn’t turn out quite right. At the morning show, Perkins did “Blue Suede Shoes” and the Statlers sang “This Ole House,” with each getting a great reaction from the crowd. But the explosion was yet to come. Between the openers and the main attraction, MC Hugh Cherry instructed the prisoners not to cheer until Cash made his famous introduction. So, before a cafeteria full of inmates at about 10 in the morning, the country great took the stage to utter silence. Arriving at the microphone, he delivered his iconic, “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash” and the place howled with delight.

Kicking off with “Folsom Prison Blues,” Cash led the musicians through an exciting and wildly varied set. They played raucous prison-themed tunes (“Cocaine Blues” and “25 Minutes to Go”), somber ballads (“The Long Black Veil,” “Send a Picture of Mother”) and goofy novelty tunes (“Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog,” “Joe Bean”). Johnny sang with June on their hit duet, “Jackson” and closed with Sherley’s “Greystone Chapel,” identifying the inmate just before the performance, to a huge response. Cash and company, reacting to the energy of the crowd, had given one of the most intense performances of their lives. And, at 12:40, they had to do it all over again. Recognizing that he had depleted his energy, Cash encouraged Carl Perkins and the Statler Brothers to perform a few more songs at the start of the show. In turn, Cash clipped his performance a little shorter. Anyone who’s heard both shows (the full recordings were released in a 2008 box set) can vouch that the first performance is better, but that Johnny doesn’t give up on the second, even as his voice starts to go.

It’s no wonder that the vast majority of tracks on the original album were taken from the first set. Only “Give My Love to Rose” and “I Got Stripes” were taken from the later concert. Yet, it’s indicative of Cash’s power, presence and passion that “Stripes” (played near the second show’s end) is one of the singer’s most thrilling performances. Leaving the stage and the prison that day, Cash must have felt he had recorded something special. He would later claim that the inmates at Folsom, “were the most enthusiastic audience I have ever played to.” The tapes that would become At Folsom Prison were mastered, edited and selected in a rather short period. By May of ’68, Columbia Records released the live album and its single (the live version of “Folsom Prison Blues”). For whatever reason, the label didn’t throw much promotion behind the release until the single began getting airplay on pop and country radio, and began scaling both charts. Soon its escalating popularity was dealt a setback.

Following the assassination of Robert Kennedy on June 5, most radio programmers refused to play a song with the line “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” Over Cash’s objections, a new version (with the line excised) was released to radio and continued its ascent. Before long, edited version of “Folsom Prison Blues” topped the country charts and hit the Top 40 on the pop charts. The album proved even more popular – topping the country album charts and peaking at #13 as a pop album entry. By the end of the year, At Folsom Prison had been certified gold (500,000 copies) and was the recipient of rave reviews. As Cash had turned over a new leaf, his career began a new chapter. Of At Folsom Prison, the star said, “that’s where things really got started for me again.” The wild success of the live album caused ABC to offer him his own TV show and encouraged Columbia to sign off on another prison album, 1969’s At San Quentin – Cash’s first album to hit #1 on the pop charts.

At Folsom Prison remains a legendary album, with millions of copies sold and tons of praise heaped upon it. It is often ranked among the best albums ever recorded and, in 2003, earned a spot in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry.

Question: What singer recorded a live record at Folsom Prison?
Answer: Johnny Cash