ESSENTIAL ALBUMS: (#17) : Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison (1968)

Perhaps more than any other popular musician, Johnny Cash felt a kinship with the incarcerated. The Man in Black’s life and music were always laced with pain and tragedy, and while he'd spend much of his career playing shows to venues around the world, it was within the more sombre confines of state prisons that his performances often felt most at home. 

Though Cash had been performing prison concerts since the late '50s, it wasn't until 1968, and a fortuitous pairing with renowned producer Bob Johnston, that Cash finally got the opportunity’ to record one for release. A couple of venues were mooted, but one in particular stood out - the inspiration for Cash's signature 'Folsom Prison Blues.

At Folsom Prison marked the beginning of a series of live albums performed and recorded behind penitentiary walls - At San Quentin, Pa Osteraker and A Concert Behind Prison Walls would follow - but it remains the most vital. And despite the setting, it’s anything but downbeat. The Folsom crowd is raucous but audibly jubilant, and Cash’s legendary’ charisma oozes between songs. He reminds them that the show is being recorded, “so you can’t say hell or shit or anything like that,” before giving a shout out to Johnston.

Musically, this is Cash at the peak of his powers, his set mixing classic folk and country numbers with a few ballads and even, in "Send A Picture Of Mother", a song written by a Folsom inmate. His voice, as ever, is immaculate, and that distinctive baritone with its delicious Southern drawl captures the longing, rebelliousness, and sometimes resignation of these songs perfectly.

You could stack the shelves of a hefty record collection purely with Cash’s oeuvre. But even with almost half a century’s worth of recordings to choose from, there’s still something particularly thrilling about hearing that customary introduction to "Folsom Prison Blues" played for a crowd to which they’re all-too familiar.

TRACKS:

1 Folsom Prison Blues

2 Busted

3 Dark as the Dungeon

4 I Still Miss Someone

5 Cocaine Blues

6 25 Minutes to Go

7 Orange Blossom Special

8 The Long Black Veil

9 Send a Picture of Mother

10 The Wall

11 Dirty Old Egg-Suckin' Dog

12 Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart

13 Joe Bean

14 Jackson

15 Give My Love to Rose

16 I Got Stripes

17 The Legend of John Henry's Hammer

18 Green, Green Grass of Home

19 Greystone Chapel (Reprise)

FULL ALBUM: