Published on Apr 2, 2002
Sometimes, the lightning just strikes.
The greatest CDs are the right artist in the right place at the
right time. There is some alchemy of chronology that grabs a single
performance or a single session and turns it from excellent into
truly great. Such is what happened when Johnny Cash and his
Tennessee Three played a live show on January 13, 1968, in front of
2,000 inmates at California’s tough Folsom Prison. The entire show
was recorded, from first to last beat. It took Cash six years to
convince a record company it could be done, and finally Columbia
recording exec Bob Johnston a shot. And from the first bar, you can
feel the electricity running through the music, galvanizing it into
something truly great. Cash had done some time behind bars himself
, and it showed; on
At Folsom Prison, he’s playing to a fraternity of men that
he’d belonged to in the past, and hell, might belong to in the
future. It works; it works sweet as honey and bitter as
horseradish.
The musicianship on
At Folsom Prison is impeccable. This was one of Cash’s great
backing bands; guitarist and friend Luther Perkins would be dead
before the summer, and I believe this is the last recording of the
great flatpicking guitarist. Carl Perkins’ guitar and Marshall
Grant’s bass are solid, and the backing vocals (by a young Statler
Brothers) are rich and full. W.S. Holland’s drumming provides a
steady backbeat to Cash’s haunting baritone.
What makes
At Folsom Prison a classic, though, is the underlying tone
of shattering tension woven through the recording. From the awkward
laugh and applause of the prisoners in the audience — who
sometimes sound like they’ve forgotten how to have a good time —
to the interruptions from prison personnel asking men to report to
processing and reception, you never once forget this is a captive
audience who Cash identifies with, intimately. This is a moment
outside of time, magical, powerful. As Cash puts it in the 1999
liner notes, “There is no calendar inside the cafeteria, today,
January 13, 1968”.
On top of all this, there’s some damned great songs. “Jackson”
(with June Carter), “The Long Black Veil”, “Greystone Chapel”
(written by Folsom inmate Glen Shirley, who was unaware that Cash
was going to perform the song), “Orange Blossom Special”, “Busted”
— this is an American great at his best. Sometimes the unlikeliest
venue brings something out of a man…
And lightning strikes. No serious music enthusiast should be
without this disc.