“Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.” Then came that guitar. It’s one of the most recognizable openings on a live country record, and it happened in a prison dining hall on a Saturday morning.
On January 13, 1968, Cash walked into California’s Folsom State Prison and opened with “Folsom Prison Blues,” a song he’d first recorded back in 1955.
It was already a hit. Singing it at the prison in its title gave it a whole different sound.
There were actually two shows that day
Cash had played Folsom before, in 1966. This time, Columbia Records producer Bob Johnston was there to make a live album.
They taped two shows, one in the morning and another around midday, so they’d have a second crack at it if the first recording fell short. As it turned out, most of the original album came from that morning show.
Cash brought his regular band, the Tennessee Three, along with June Carter, Carl Perkins and the Statler Brothers.
The set had a little more variety than the title of the record might suggest.
There was the gallop of “Orange Blossom Special,” the back-and-forth with June on “Jackson,” and, somehow, a song called “Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog.” Then there was “25 Minutes to Go,” a darkly funny countdown sung from the point of view of a man about to be hanged. Quite a change of mood for one show.
And that famous cheer after the Reno line in “Folsom Prison Blues”? According to Cash biographer Michael Streissguth, Johnston spliced it in when he put the record together.
It’s easy to hear that moment and assume the crowd erupted right there. One of the loudest reactions in the room, though, came for a song most people outside Folsom had never heard.
Below, you can watch a video featuring footage from Johnny Cash’s various prison concerts.
The prison recording became a country hit
Columbia released At Folsom Prison in May 1968. By July, both the album and the live single of “Folsom Prison Blues” had reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country charts.
Cash followed it with At San Quentin in 1969, the prison album that gave him “A Boy Named Sue.”
The original album runs from that quick hello to “Greystone Chapel,” and it’s still a good way to hear the show. For more of what went on in the dining hall, the 2008 Legacy Edition has both sets in full.
That means two chances to hear Cash open with the song everyone was waiting for, and two chances to hear him close with one he’d only learned the night before.
Here’s the video of Folsom Prison Blues, Live at San Quentin: