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Dec 23, 2023 · The story behind Johnny Cash's 'At Folsom Prison' is unusual; how many superstars perform live at one of America’s most notorious prisons?
- Contributor
- 56 min
- The Real Story Behind Folsom Prison Blues
- Cash Wrote Folsom Prison Blues in The Air Force
- Cash’s Career Takes Off
- Johnny Cash’s Prison Performances
- Folsom Prison Blues Climbs The Charts Amid Controversy
- Cash Fights For Prison Reform
- Lasting Success For Folsom Prison Blues
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Cash’s iconic album and single, we’re taking you behind the scenes and uncovering the facts that even the most hard-core Johnny Cash fans may not know about this legendary song, the album, and the Man in Black himself.
Before he became a country music legend, Cash enlisted as a member of the United States Air Force in 1950. After completing basic training, Cash was assigned as a morse intercept officer and stationed in Landsberg, Germany in 1951. “The Air Force taught me the things every military service imparts to its enlisted men … plus one skill that’s pretty ...
While in Basic Training, Cash met his first wife, Vivian Liberto. The couple was married in 1954 after Cash was discharged from the Air Force, settled in Memphis, and had four children together. After Cash left the Air Force, he entered radio school with his GI Bill, hoping to become a disc jockey. But Cash needed a job and, after inquiring about p...
Cash’s first prison performance occurred in 1957 when he performed for inmates at Huntsville State Prison. The favorable response inspires the country legend to perform at more prisons through the years. By the late 60’s, Cash’s personal life was on the upswing, but his career was beginning to stall. He pitched the idea for a live album recording a...
It took four months for Columbia Records to release Cash’s album At Folsom Prison. On May 25, 1968, Folsom Prison Blues hit the Billboard Top 100 chart. The significance of Folsom Prison Blues hitting the Billboard chart is better understood when you consider some of the other artists on the chart that same day. In a sea of artists such as Stevie W...
The success of the album breathed new life into Cash’s career and awakened a new passion in the Man in Black. He began to campaign for prison reform, believing in the powers of redemption and rehabilitation for the inmates he had met over the years. Cash’s mission to help inmates return to society came from his own past brushes with the law, story ...
At Folsom Prisonstayed on the country music charts for 90 weeks, and in the Billboard Top 200 for 122 weeks. The album was certified Gold in the fall of 1968, and certified Triple Platinum in 2003. Cash received Grammys for both At Folsom Prison(Best Album Notes, 1969) and Folsom Prison Blues (Best Country Vocal Performance, Male, 1969). At Folsom ...
May 7, 2018 · Dressed in his trademark black on January 13th, 1968, he paradoxically celebrated prison and outlaw life while creating a damning portrait of the prison experience that pricked the era’s...
- Michael Streissguth
Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison is the first live album by American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, released on Columbia Records on May 6, 1968. After his 1955 song " Folsom Prison Blues ", Cash had been interested in recording a performance at a prison.
May 28, 2018 · When Johnny Cash stepped onstage at Folsom State Prison on Jan. 13, 1968, for the concerts that would change his life, he was in rough shape. His record label had threatened to drop him, his ...
Jan 19, 2016 · Johnny Cash held his fair share of prison concerts over the years, but the album At Folsom Prison, recorded at California's infamous maximum security prison, is arguably his most famous.
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Jan 12, 2018 · He recorded a successful live album in prison and eventually got out of jail. He went on to join Cash’s band, but was fired after threatening to kill one of his bandmates.
