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. 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.
#Johnny cash folsom prison blues plus
Among the best: Flatt and Scruggs play up the song's rowdy bluegrass elements on the 1996-released 1964-1969, Plus box set. As such, it has become folk/country classic, a standard with countless cover versions. "Folsom Prison Blues" rightly takes its place among the folk/country lexicon of prison songs. 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. 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).
"Folsom Prison Blues" follows the traditional symbol of the train whistle, as Hank Williams wrote about in "(I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle" (1951). 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. Until it closed its doors in 1994, the Sacramento Union was the oldest daily newspaper west of the Mississippi.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. The photographs of the concert, seen below, are from the Sacramento Union Newspaper Archives.
The Statler Brothers, another opening act, provided takeoffs on Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, The Ink Spots, and the McGuire Sisters.
Although Cash wrote his famous song “Folsom Prison Blues” in 1955, it wasn’t until this 1966 concert that he first stepped foot in Folsom Prison.Īccording to the NovemSacramento Bee article, “Folsom Inmates Brave Chill for ‘Friend’ Cash,” the concert also featured the four female singers, Maybelle Carter, June Carter, Helen Carter, and Anita Carter, who were known as the Carter Family. On Novem(the same day that Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California), Johnny Cash performed at Folsom Prison in front of approximately 1,800 inmates. But did you know that his first concert at Folsom Prison was 50 years ago today? You’ve probably heard Johnny Cash’s famous song, “Folsom Prison Blues,” and may know that Cash performed his live album, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, at the prison in January 1968.
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