(recording, 1968)
When Johnny Cash recorded a live album at Folsom Prison, he had a captive audience. Literally. A thousand inmates crowded into the prison dining hall to hear one of country music’s legendary characters, a man who had written a hit song about their hated institution and had previously visited prisons to play for the inmates. But no one had ever recorded an album in a prison, and this was a dream that Cash, with deep compassion for these forgotten men, had long nursed. When he was finally able to convince Columbia Records to let him record at Folsom, no one expected the resulting album would become an instant classic, a record that would reinvigorate Cash’s faltering career, inspire the prisoners, and bring national attention to the need for prison reform.
As Cash and his backing group arrived at Folsom, there was an almost funereal feeling among them as they heard the iron gates clank shut behind them. No one knew exactly what to expect, and they had been warned that the prison could not guarantee their safety.
Despite some initial technical problems with the sound system, the concert kicked off energetically with Carl Perkins and The Statler Brothers before Johnny Cash finally introduced himself, receiving a roar of approval as he jump-started his classic “Folsom Prison Blues” with a fast and fiery performance. He then sang almost every song he knew about crime and imprisonment. Highlights included a recklessly energetic version of “Cocaine Blues,” a tongue-in-cheek song about the anticipation of a hanging, “25 Minutes to Go,” and the sentimental ballad “Send a Picture of Mother.” June Carter (who would soon become Cash’s wife) then joined him on stage for a stomping, steaming rendition of their famous duet “Jackson.” The audience embraced Cash with all their raucous energy, sensing that here was a man who understood them.
Then Cash slowed things down a bit with “The Green, Green Grass of Home” before announcing that his closing song had been written by one of the Folsom inmates, who was sitting among them in the audience, unaware his song was about to be performed. Glen Sherley’s song “Greystone Chapel” had been passed along to Cash the night before, and the band had little time to learn it. But they performed it with passion and dignity, and the inmates roared their appreciation of this deeply spiritual song about the chapel that stood as a refuge of peace and mercy within the walls of this hellish prison. The chapel, the song promised, was a place where the sinner could meet God and be forgiven.
“Greystone Chapel” was the perfect ending to a concert that showcased both sides of Johnny Cash—the outlaw rebel who identified with the anger and disgust of the prisoners at their subhuman treatment, and the Christian believer who saw God as the only hope for men who had fallen to such a state. He didn’t judge; he commiserated. Then he shone the light of truth into the darkness of a prison dining hall. And it was all captured on tape for a record that has become one of the classics of contemporary music.
Johnny Cash was born “J. R. Cash” in rural Arkansas in 1932, and was raised in a family that owned a small farm and struggled to make ends meet. He began working with his family picking cotton at age five, where he would join the family in singing as they worked the fields. He always loved music, especially the gospel music he would hear when the family gathered around the radio. His dream was that he might one day sing gospel songs on the radio, and so he mastered the guitar and wrote songs as early as age twelve. After military service in Germany he returned to the United States, where he settled in Memphis, married, got a job selling appliances, and met Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant.
Cash, Perkins, and Grant would gather at Grant’s home in the evenings after work and fool around with their acoustic guitars. They decided they needed to diversify their instruments, so Perkins got himself an electric guitar and Grant a stand-up bass. Working with instruments that were largely unfamiliar to them, the three experimented with the combination of sounds they could make and stumbled upon a fresh and exciting sound, the rhythmic “chick-a-boom” that would become the characteristic backdrop to so many of Cash’s early songs.
Armed with their signature sound and Cash’s resonant bass-baritone voice, which had the gravity of rolling thunder, they auditioned for Sam Phillips at Sun Records, hoping to make a gospel record. Phillips had no interest in gospel but liked their sound, so he told them to come back when they had more saleable songs. The trio returned with “Hey Porter” and “Cry, Cry, Cry,” which became hits, and were followed by such classics as “Folsom Prison Blues” and “I Walk the Line.” When Cash, already unhappy with his subpar contract at Sun, found himself getting less attention than labelmate Jerry Lee Lewis, he moved to Columbia Records, where he would record almost sixty albums. Plus, Columbia would let him fulfill his dream of recording a gospel album.
As his career began to take off, Cash started drinking heavily and taking drugs (amphetamines and barbiturates) to cope with the stress. The result was erratic behavior and undependable concert performances, even as his career was kicking into high gear. From the beginning Cash had cultivated an outlaw image—tough, dangerous, and unpredictable—and now the actions resulting from his drug addiction actually did land him in jail a couple of times (although, despite the popular myth, he never served any time in a prison). In spite of all his troubles, he produced a number of interesting albums during the mid-sixties (such as Bitter Tears, a concept album honoring Native Americans, and Blood, Sweat and Tears, a tribute to the working man), as well as recording huge hits like “Ring of Fire” and “Jackson,” a duet with June Carter, with whom he found himself falling in love.
Near the end of the 1960s Cash’s personal life was a mess, his struggling marriage had ended, and his popularity was ebbing. It was a dark time. One day, under the influence of drugs, he decided to commit suicide by losing himself in Nickajack Cave, where he hoped to “just die.” Deep inside the labyrinthine passages of the cave he collapsed exhausted on the stone floor and decided that this was the end. But then, in the darkness of the cave, Cash felt the presence of God with him, the God from whom he had spent many years running. Suddenly he understood that God still loved him, and he wanted to live. Struggling to his feet, he began to desperately search for the exit to the cave, wondering if he would ever find his way out. He did, and when he emerged back into the light, he determined to change his ways, to kick his drug habit, and to marry the woman who had been a stabilizing force through the darkest of his days, June Carter.
The success of At Folsom Prison, and its even more successful follow-up At San Quentin (1969), turned his career around almost as quickly as the spiritual odyssey in Nickajack Cave had turned around his personal life. The late sixties and early seventies would see him surpass his earlier notoriety and take his place as a living legend of music. His television series, The Johnny Cash Show, his friendship with the likes of Bob Dylan and Neil Young, and the phenomenal popularity of his prison albums earned him fans outside the usual country music scene.
In the seventies Cash became established as “The Man in Black,” because he dressed in all-black clothes rather than the rhinestone suits of other country singers. Always a man who looked out for the underdog, he explained in his song “Man in Black” that he wore that color on behalf of the poor and the hungry, the prisoners, the recovering addicts, and the overlooked and neglected. Such concerns were nothing new for Cash. From his earliest days he had sung of the dignity of “the ones who are held back,” considering this as part of his duty as a Christian.
It was also his duty as a Christian, he believed, to share his faith with others. He wrote a spiritual autobiography, befriended Billy Graham and appeared on two dozen of his televised crusades, recorded more gospel music, and even wrote, produced, and directed a feature-length movie about the life of Jesus, The Gospel Road (1973), which offered his own vision of a Christ who was both ruggedly masculine and deeply compassionate. Cash became an outspoken Christian but steered clear of judging others. “There is a spiritual side to me that goes real deep,” he said, “but I confess right up front that I’m the biggest sinner of them all.”1
Though the years that followed would see their ups and downs, Cash would see a great resurgence of interest in his music in the years just before his death, when he recorded a series of albums (the American Recordings) with famous producer Rick Rubin. By that time Cash’s voice had become even more gravelly and world-weary, and it was perfect for the cover songs he recorded such as “Hurt.” But in an interview with Larry King given shortly before his death, Cash spoke of the happiness and beauty he had found in his life.
Johnny Cash was a man of paradoxes. An antiauthoritarian rebel who might offer his middle finger to those in power; a preacher and Bible student and gospel storyteller; a country singer who sold over fifty million records, many of them to folks who didn’t normally listen to country music; a man who struggled with drugs, got clean, but had to fight them off again and again; and a man known to all his friends as a giving, caring, compassionate soul. He never thought of himself as anything other than a redeemed sinner, and because of that, he could gain a hearing from those who would never give the time of day to a saint.