Six Musicians Discuss Johnny Cash and At Folsom Prison

Page 2 of 2

On January 13, 1968, Johnny Cash entered Folsom State Prison, one of the first maximum security prisons in the country and the second-oldest prison in California, and recorded the legendary album At Folsom Prison. This month marks the 45th anniversary of the recording of this album. The album, which contains tracks taken from two different performances, is replete with songs about prison life and despair that resonated with his inmate audience. The album revitalized his career, and its popularity encouraged him to return to the prison scene to record At San Quentin, which would be his first album to hit Number One on the pop charts.

Below, six musicians discuss Johnny Cash, At Folsom Prison, and the legacy of The Man in Black.

Charlie Starr – Blackberry Smoke

Charlie Starr first became acquainted with Cash as a child through his father, a bluegrass guitarist. His father would play “Wreck of the Old 97,” a song made popular by Cash: “I always wanted to hear him sing the Old 97.” In the song, the train engineer, Steve, dies. “I was just enthralled with those lyrics with Steve being scalded to death by the steam,” says Starr. “That ended up being the first song he taught me on the guitar.”

When he was a little older, he found At Folsom Prison in his father’s record collection and reminisces about looking at it and thinking how Cash looked like a preacher: “He’s standing at the microphone—his hair is black and combed back, and he’s got sweat dripping off his brow. That’s how all Baptist preachers looked to me then when I was little.” For Starr, the original edited album was more powerful than any reissue or unedited version. He explains, “When [Cash] says you can’t say ‘hell’ or ‘shit’ or anything like that and there was a beep, that is so powerful, especially when you are a child and you hear something beep and you know a bad word was beeped but you might not be exactly sure what it was, and then your imagination runs wild. You’re like ‘what did he say that was so horrible?! That is awesome!’”

Starr says the prison environment in which it was recorded made for a spooky album: “With the warden speaking between certain songs and making prison announcements. It’s just spooky. It’s creepy at times. I know there is video of some of it, but I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to see it and have it ruin the mental picture that I have of these guys who are being entertained in prison.”

Starr shares a story he heard about Cash from George Jones or “Cowboy” Jack Clement: “I can’t remember which one told this story, but they were fishing years ago with Johnny in an aluminum johnboat and [Cash] stood up in the boat for whatever reason and had his legs spread wide apart from side to side, and whoever it was who was with him said ‘Johnny, be careful, sit down, I don’t want you to fall in and drown.’ And Johnny said ‘I can’t drown. I’m a country music legend.’”

Jake Fish – Devil Whale

Fish first heard Cash growing up in a “hick town” in central Utah: “My buddy’s parents owned a little cafe on Highway 6, smack-dab in the middle of nowhere. At 10 years old, we started spending weekends at the cafe bussing tables. We got paid in quarters and those quarters went to the jukebox,” said Fish. It was there, at the advice of a trucker, that Fish discovered Cash: “[He] suggested I select the Johnny Cash classic, ‘Ring of Fire.’ I must have played it a dozen times that night and dozens more every time I went back.” He continues, “Of course at 10, I had no notion of metaphor, or love for that matter, but that song was magic! It’s still a favorite and I’d recommend it to any 10-year-old.”

When asked about the album concept of recording at a prison, Fish believes “you’d be hard-pressed to find a band willing to perform at a prison these days. God knows I don’t have the guts.” He continues by saying, “Cash just really dug that character, the one from ‘Folsom Prison Blues.’ Maybe he felt as if he owed it to those dudes, or just wanted to know that character a little better. Either way, to perform the way he did, you almost think he belonged there.”

When asked what his favorite Cash song is, Fish responds, “‘Get Rhythm,’ a cheery tune about a boy shining shoes? How do you do it, Cash? Like so much of his catalog, this song seems to jump genres, combining a heel-stomp bluegrass porch performance with rock-n-roll of the late ’60s.” According to Fish, it is a “perfect tune!”

Fish believes Cash’s legacy is inextricably tied to June: “For all the shit he came through in his early years by way of his own mistakes, the years since June have seemed to define him.” He continues by saying, “While, somehow, retaining his ‘Folsom’ mystique, the man in black proved he had a soft spot. That soft spot is most apparent in the gut-wrenching American recordings, recorded while he was losing, then lost her. He was always so unapologetically straight-forward, whether he was telling you to ‘fuck off’ or ‘give him a hug.’”

Jimbo Mathus – The Tri-State Coalition; Squirrel Nut Zippers

Mathus recalls being introduced to Cash by way of his television show: “I remember sitting on the floor in front of the massive wooden television, his craggy face and stentorian voice deeply imbedding in my infant psyche. I guess that ‘I hear that train a comin’’ are the first words I recall him saying.”

Mathus was just a baby when At Folsom Prison was released. However, he has strong feelings about the album: “Cash gives a voice to men locked away behind the immovable walls of the American justice system, forgotten idlers, side street sidlers, rednecks, loafers, bad luck kids, rapists, forgerers and murderers. All the warped and underprivileged who can’t afford no [sic] lawyer and just gotta do their time with an ‘achin heart and a worried mind.” Mathus believes the record showing up in the living rooms of American “polite society” was Cash’s way of giving the finger to the “rich folks eating in a fancy dining car.” “Gather around the hi-fi children and listen to the nice man sing about drug fueled murders and egg suckin dogs, dying hoboes and the great Mystery, flushed directly from the bathroom of men’s dark hearts. Genius. Long Live Cash!”

According to Mathus, his favorite songs from At Folsom Prison are “‘I Still Miss Someone,’ for its pure sweetness and ‘Cocaine Blues’ for its savagery. Hearing the inmates roaring in sympathetic approval of ‘Cocaine Blues’ is just so satisfying. The machine—like rhythmic clank of the band, the hoarse, breathless delivery of the verse, everything is perfect. The perfect song for the perfect audience.”