The 500 - #88 - At Folsom Prison - Johnny Cash

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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Album #: 88

Album Title: At Folsom Prison

Artist: Johnny Cash

Genre:  Country, Rock

Recorded: Folsom State Prison, Folsom, California

Released: May, 1968

My age at release: 2

How familiar was I with it before this week: Somewhat

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #164 - dropping 66 spots

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Cocaine Blues

I thought I knew this record. I certainly knew a lot of the songs. Folsom Prison Blues has been part of the Johnny Cash mythology for as long as I can remember, and Cocaine Blues wasn't unfamiliar territory either. The late Reverend Freddie and the Distillers, whom I wrote about in my Hank Williams post, used to perform both songs regularly. So when At Folsom Prison came up on my journey through The 500 Greatest Albums list, I figured this would be one of those records where I would be thinking all week about an angle to write about. Then, I fell into a research rabbit hole.

The more I read about At Folsom Prison, the more I realized how little I actually knew about it, even getting the title wrong for years. To me, it was "Live at Folsom Prison", which seems perfectly reasonable since it is, after all, a live album recorded at Folsom Prison. Except it isn't called that. The title is simply At Folsom Prison. No “Live.”

Folsom Prison, Folsom. California.

My mistake is an example of the tiny musical corrections this project keeps handing me – such as learning I've spent decades adding “The” to Eagles, Ramones and Pixies. None of those bands includes the definite article in their moniker.

I also had this image in my head of Johnny Cash essentially arriving at Folsom with his band and playing a concert for the inmates one evening. In reality, it was much more of a travelling country show. Carl Perkins, the man who wrote and first recorded Blue Suede Shoes, was there, as were The Statler Brothers; Cash's band; The Tennessee Three; and June Carter. In fact, those artists performed two concerts at Folsom on January 13, 1968, one in the morning and another a few hours later. Most of the performances from the first show appeared on the original album. Not bad for a morning shift.

Cash performing at Folsom Prison.

I knew June Carter was there because you can hear her voice on Jackson, her duet with Cash. However, I hadn't really thought about where the pair were in their lives at that particular time. We tend to look back at their story, knowing how it ends. They became “Johnny and June”-- one of those couples whose names seem naturally attached to one another. By the time I knew who Johnny was, June seemed inseparable from the image of the man himself. Indeed, they married -- but that wasn't the situation when they walked into Folsom that January morning 58 years ago.

Johnny and June.

Johnny had married his first wife, Vivian Liberto, 14 years earlier in 1954, and they had four daughters together. As Johnny's career took off, however, life on the road, his escalating drug use and his growing relationship with June helped tear the marriage apart. Walk the Line, the 2005 biopic with Joaquin Phoenix as Cash, Reese Witherspoon as June and Ginnifer Goodwin as Vivian, makes that troubled triangle one of the central stories of the film. By the Folsom period, Johnny and Vivian's marriage was over in everything but the legal formalities, while his relationship with June had become the central focus in his life.

Movie poster for Walk The Line.

In fact, James Mangold’s film Walk the Line begins with the Folson Prison concert. We see Cash backstage at Folsom before the movie moves backwards through his childhood, his first marriage, his early recording career, his drug problems, and his complicated relationship with June.

Joaquin Phoenix as Cash in Walk The Line's Folsom Prison.

Eventually the story swings back to Folsom, and we see Phoenix's Cash performing for the prisoners. The film, therefore, treats the concert almost as the destination. But it didn’t mean Cash’s turbulent life had come to an end. Just that events continued to unfold – but without Vivian.

Cash with his first wife, Vivian Liberto.

The movie covers Cash’s famous proposal to Carter on a concert stage in London, Ontario – interestingly only a few kilometers from where I wrote this post.

Mural depicting Cash's proposal on the exterior of
Canada Life Place in London, Ontario. 

Another fascinating aspect of the Folsom shin dig was the emergence of Glen Sherley, a musician who became part of the Cash legend.

He didn't come through the Folsom gates with Cash, Carter or Perkins. He was already on the other side a resident serving time for armed robbery. By 1968 he had spent considerable portions of his life as an inmate in the California prison system where he honed his skill as a songwriter.

One of Sherley's compositions was called Greystone Chapel, a song inspired by the chapel inside Folsom itself. He managed to have the song recorded, and a cassette tape found its way to Reverend Floyd Gressett, a minister who worked with prisoners and also happened to know Cash.

Greystone Chapel inside Folsom Prison.

On January 12, 1968, the night before the concerts, Cash listened to it, loved what he heard and decided he wanted to perform the song the following morning. He stayed up late that night learning it.

The best part of the story is that Glen Sherley apparently knew none of this as he took his place among the inmates to watch Cash perform, completely unaware that during the previous night one of the biggest stars in country music had been sitting in a motel room learning his song.

Sherley in attendance at Folsom Prison show.

Sherley watched as Cash tore through songs about prisons, trains, murder, loneliness and bad decisions, many of them describing lives that the men sitting in front of him understood well.

Near the end of the concert, Cash introduced another song and explained that it had been written by someone right there inside Folsom Prison. Then he said the man's name: Glen Sherley.

Cash shaking hands with Sherley.

Cash's bass player, Marshall Grant, later recalled Sherley essentially melting into his seat as the prisoners around him erupted. Suddenly, the guy sitting among them wasn't simply another inmate. Johnny Cash was standing onstage about to sing something he had written.

Because Columbia was recording the concert, Sherley's moment didn't stay inside Folsom. Greystone Chapel became the closing song on At Folsom Prison, meaning that this unknown prisoner's composition travelled beyond those gates even while its writer couldn't.

You'd think that would be the wonderful little piece of trivia at the end of Glen Sherley's story, but it wasn't. Sherley kept writing behind bars, and in 1971 another of his songs, Portrait of My Woman, was recorded by country star Eddy Arnold. Arnold didn't bury it on an album either. The song became a single and the title track of his Portrait of My Woman album. Sherley also got the extraordinary opportunity to record an album of his own while incarcerated at Vacaville, Prison. The Folsom prisoner whose song Cash had unexpectedly performed was slowly becoming a legitimate country songwriter without having built anything resembling a normal life outside prison.

There seemed to be a remarkable redemption story forming, and Cash tried to help make it happen. When Sherley was paroled in 1971, Cash didn't simply congratulate him and move on. Sherley became associated with Cash's House of Cash publishing operation and eventually joined Cash's touring organization.

For a while, the story must have seemed almost too perfect: an imprisoned songwriter has one of his songs unknowingly passed onto Johnny Cash; he hears Cash perform it inside a prison; has another song recorded by Eddy Arnold; gets released and finds himself welcomed into the professional country-music world.

Unfortunately, real life refused to provide a Hollywood ending. Sherley struggled badly outside prison. Years of incarceration hadn't prepared him for the schedules, expectations and pressures of life on the road. His behaviour became increasingly unpredictable, his relationship with members of Cash's organization deteriorated, and eventually that extraordinary second chance fell apart. His music career faded, his personal life deteriorated and, in 1978, Glen Sherley died by suicide at the age of 42.

Sherley's story changes At Folsom Prison for me. The mythology of the record naturally revolves around Johnny Cash walking into that prison dressed in black, facing a room filled with inmates and delivering that famous introduction, “Hello, I'm Johnny Cash.” That's the image that survived, and Walk the Line helped introduce it to another generation. But what I hadn't appreciated before digging into this album was how many other stories were unfolding in that room.

The 500 - #311 - The Sun Records Collection - Various Artists

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 311

Album Title: The Sun Records Collection

Artist: Various Artists

Genre: Various - Blues, Country, Gospel, Rockabilly, Early Rock & Roll

Recorded: Sun Studios - Memphis, Tennessee

Released: 1994

My age at release: 28

How familiar was I with it before this week: Somewhat

Is it on the 2020 list? No

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Rocket 88

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am not a fan of greatest hits or compilation records being placed on The 500 list. However, much like the album Anthology by The Temptations (#400), The Sun Record Collection serves as a historical document, capturing an influential period in the evolution of music and, more specifically, the birth of Rock and Roll.

Sun Records was an independent record label established in February, 1952. It was housed within the Memphis Recording Service Studio, which was opened by producer Sam Phillips in January. 1950. Sun Records was the first studio to record Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Memphis Recording Service Studios (1950s)

The second track on this anthology is Rocket 88, a song with an interesting history, having a reputation for being possibly the first Rock and Roll record produced.  It was recorded in March, 1951 by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats -- who were actually Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm. Yes, that Ike Turner, Tina's former, abusive husband.

Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm

The song was written to celebrate the production of the Oldsmobile Rocket 88. Some automobile enthusiasts claim it was the first "muscle car", boasting a powerful V8 engine that could reach 60 miles per hour in 13 seconds. It had a top speed of nearly 100 mph – a remarkable feat for an automobile built at that time.

Rocket 88 (the song, not the car) was the first successful track recorded at the Memphis Recording Studio and was produced by the aforementioned Sam Phillips. Sales hit #1 on the Billboard charts that June and helped finance the creation of Sun Records.

Rocket 88 is also the track I am putting on "The 500" Spotify Playlist that I have been building since this marathon blog series started in January, 2019. My partiality reaches back to a period when I began learning to play the song in order to perform with my friend Vince Braca's band, The Black Holes. Vince's group has played an up-tempo mix of 50s era Rockabilly, Rock and Roll and 60s Surf Rock around the London, Ontario, area for more than 20 years.

Vince (forefront) and The Black Holes (2007) 

One Friday in 2007 the band was booked to play at The Brass Door, a popular pub in Downtown London. A few weeks earlier, Vince invited me to join him on stage for a set. I had been playing the saxophone since Grade 6, but I was rusty and needed to prepare for a performance and have sheet musician on hand. How I envy players who can spontaneously join in a jam session.  A mutual friend, Cole Benjamin, who is also a talented guitarist, singer and saxophonist,  helped me chart the songs and practice. To top it off, he joined the performance with his tenor sax. 

Me, Marc Hodgkinson,clowning around with Cole Benjamin (foreground) pre-show

I was familiar with most of the songs on the setlist for the performance but one that stood out was Rocket 88. I told Cole and he popped with excitement. "It's a great song, it's just a 12-bar blues with this easy boogie-woogie shuffle we get to play -- it has a sax solo, too." Minutes later, we were practising and I was hooked. Cole was right, it is a delightful song and the shuffle is so much fun.

Sheet music for Rocket 88 - the shuffle circled in red

As you might have guessed, the more talented Cole took the solo, although later in the set I had a short one of my own. Since that time, Rocket 88 has been one of my favourite songs – a reminder of that terrific night.

Cole and me, playing with The Black Holes

Perhaps in retirement I will pull my sax out of its dusty case and recover my playing chops; maybe join an amateur band in town. Heck, I might even become a spontaneous jammer.

MORE

Check out this performance of Thirteen Women by The Black Holes from 2009.

The 500 - #366 - American Recordings - Johnny Cash

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.