http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
Published October 13, 2008 at 6 p.m.
It's an easy argument to make: Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison is the most important live recording ever. Not only was it a social flash point when released in 1968, but it made Cash a sensation and lifted country music to a new level.
It's rereleased today in a Legacy Edition that lives up to its name. Besides finally presenting audio recordings of both shows performed at the California prison on Jan. 13, 1968, it includes a 90-minute documentary by Cash biographer Michael Streissguth and director Bestor Cram that puts the concert into context.No film crew accompanied Cash - only photographer Jim Marshall. Using those photos, audio recordings and interviews, the film gives the performances context and resonance. The soul-crushing existence at the medieval-looking stone prison is bleakly captured.
What's particularly engrossing, though, is the telling of the story through the eyes of two inmates who were there for the shows. Convict Glen Sherley was a gifted songwriter; Cash recorded Sherley's "Greystone Chapel" at the concert and later gave the inmate a leg up in the music world, hiring him as an opening act when he was finally paroled. Millard Dedmon, also in the audience that day, recalls the life-changing impact the performance had on him.
The two took different paths. After his release, Sherley spiraled down violently to the point where he committed suicide. Dedmon walked the line for the rest of his life and was officially declared fully rehabilitated.
Here's what Cash biographer Streissguth had to say about the documentary in a recent phone interview:
Was there a real sense of danger at the shows?
There was . . . people in the group feared somebody might lunge at them, lunge at June. There was something palpable there. Jim Marshall's photographs reveal a concern. . . . In the documentary, (Marshall's) saying that when those prison doors slam shut, Cash turns to him and says, "That has a feeling of permanence." We went in there to shoot (new footage) and they tell you, "We don't negotiate with hostage-takers." You think twice. As many inmates say, guards don't run the prison, inmates run the prison.
What made you think there was a story here that needed to be told?
Our characters were compelling. Glen Sherley is a story that's largely untold. We knew from the beginning he'd be a major character. Millard Dedmon is just so eloquent in describing conditions in the prison and Cash's visit. And he's an embodiment of Cash's aspirations. . . . They can succeed, there is life after prison.
What made this album different?
All you have to do is compare it with Cash's San Quentin show (recorded in 1969), which is electrifying, but it was also very much staged with film cameras in mind. Whereas Folsom was kind of in the dark. No fanfare. People went in with low expectations. Marshall Grant told us Columbia only agreed to this to have product to release on Cash, who wasn't spending much time in studios. In the end, it's one of the most important recorded concerts in popular music. It turned Cash's career around. He became an international star, and he brought country music with him. More important, it was a quintessential 1960s statement. The '60s were at least in part about solidarity with those on the fringes of society.
Despite some jail stints, Cash didn't have a lengthy prison record. Where did he get his empathy to do all these prison concerts?
He had a deep-seated concern for his fellow man. I think that probably dates to his Christian education. In the community he grew up in, a farming cooperative, to succeed you often have to rely on the hands of others. It just evolved from that.
In the film, Roseanne Cash says this concert changed her father as a person. Did it?
It did. Because of the affirmation he received in the wake of it. He learned via the commercial response and the critical response that his work was appreciated and it was important. The affirmation helped transform his personal life. It took him away from the heavy drug use and turned him back to religion. It led him to focus more on family.
After the fact, they dubbed in cheering after the line "I killed a man in Reno just to watch him die." Doesn't that contradict Cash's humanitarian intentions by making the inmates sound bloodthirsty?
Bob Johnston, producer of the album, was working to make this as compelling a piece of entertainment as possible. As any producer does, he looks for ways to embellish what's there. It's not at all surprising that Johnston would have cut that crowd noise into it; it happens at other junctures as well. We have to remember that Cash was an entertainer. He was somebody who wanted to sell records. This kind of compromise, if you will, is not so surprising.
Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (Legacy Edition DVD)
Columbia/Sony
* Grade: A
Boxed set shines light on legendary Cash prison show
40th anniversary edition of ‘Folsom Prison’ dispels some beloved myths.
By RICHARD L. ELDREDGE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://www.accessatlanta.com/
Sunday, October 12, 2008
As it turns out, one of the most iconic moments in American music history is the result of a razor blade, a prerecorded hunk of hollering and some Scotch tape.But the reality of the late singer’s talent and compassion shines through on the 40th-anniversary boxed set.
The 1,000 inmates packed into the California prison’s cafeteria that Jan. 16, 1968, morning screamed, whistled and wildly applauded the musical murder.
For 40 years, music fans have regarded the chilling moment as a key component in the DNA of Cash’s career-making mystique.
But it never happened.
Columbia Records producer Bob Johnston later spliced the crowd response into the song.
Writer Michael Streissguth discovered the bit of larcenous creative license while he was researching his 2004 book, “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece.”
Streissguth was in a studio listening to the master tapes of the concert with Sony Legacy engineers. On the weathered reel-to-reel tape, the moment whizzed past without any audience eruption.
Curious, the writer and the engineers pulled out the edited master. Sure enough, on the final version when Cash’s iconic line was cued up, the spliced in, taped up edit was evident.
“It floored me,” Streissguth recalled. “I had bought into the drama and authenticity of that moment along with everyone else. I didn’t even know if Sony was going to allow me to leave the studio with the information!”
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the classic Cash recording, Legacy has opted to pull back the curtain on almost all the myths long associated with the session that day via a new “Folsom Prison” boxed set. The three-disc set — including a new 90-minute documentary directed by Bestor Cram and written by Streissguth — arrives in stores Tuesday.
For fans, it’s an enlightening, fascinating and occasionally disappointing archaeological dig into a historic day in music.
It’s the album that turned Cash into both a folk hero and a multiplatinum recording artist.
And “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison” would also eventually earn one inmate his freedom.
‘Live Performance 101’
Like many creative endeavors, the process began with an argument. Then-Columbia Records President Clive Davis cautioned Cash against making a live album at a prison, warning him that it could kill his career.
Undaunted, Cash, who had become accustomed to playing in prisons, knew there was an energy inside the walls that could be ultimately captured on a live recording.“You can feel the electricity and the excitement in that room,” country star Travis Tritt said. The Marietta native first heard “Folsom Prison Blues” coming out of his radio as a kid on Atlanta’s WBIE-FM 101.5 FM. After his father bought an eight-track of the album, the future Grammy winner for “The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’ ” wore it out. To this day, a dozen or so “Folsom Prison” purchases later, Tritt said he always keeps a copy close by, even when he’s on tour.
“For me, that album is a Live Performance 101 class,” Tritt said. “The crowd reaction was amazing. Johnny Cash was speaking their language on that cafeteria stage. Even the real bad guys in that hall were with him.”
While Cash had never done any hard time himself, he had spent enough time behind bars to familiarize himself with the isolation.
On the “Folsom” back cover, Cash scrawls in the handwritten liner notes: “You count the steel bars on the door so many times that you hate yourself for it. … There is nothing to look forward to.”
Giving prisoners something to look forward to became a primary objective of the 1968 Folsom appearance.
Early that morning, Cash, clad in a leather jacket, was escorted into the prison with his band, the Tennessee Three, girlfriend June Carter, photographer Jim Marshall, Los Angeles Times reporter Robert Hilburn and opening acts the Stadler Brothers and rockabilly legend Carl Perkins.
The grim, black-bedecked entourage could have been trudging toward the gas chamber as the gates clanged shut behind them. A small white piece of bathroom tissue clung to Cash’s face, the result of a shaving slip.
Much of the material Cash selected lyrically sliced as deep: the murderous and misogynistic “Cocaine Blues,” the death row ditty “25 Minutes to Go” and “I Got Stripes.”
Cash also peppered the performance with the humorous, prisoner-pleasing “Dirty Old Egg Sucking Dog” and “Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart.”
Carter emerged to the inmates’ delight to do a duet and flirt with Cash on “Jackson.”
And Cash ended the show by performing “Greystone Chapel,” a song about the prison’s house of worship written by budding songwriter, singer and Folsom inmate Glen Shirley.
Shirley, who was seated in the front row, was stunned. The fame of the song on the eventual “Folsom” album, coupled with Cash’s public support, eventually earned Shirley an early release from Folsom.
‘A piece of theater’
In Legacy’s new boxed set, for the first time fans will have an opportunity to hear the day’s second show. Also included are tracks from the Stadler Brothers and Perkins warming up the crowd. The set also includes two additional duets with Carter and one more myth-crushing realization.
For 40 years, the first thing fans have heard on the “Folsom” album is complete silence until Cash steps to the microphone and says “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.” Thunderous applause then ricochets throughout the room as Cash and crew bang into the opening strains of “Folsom Prison Blues.”
In the new Legacy edition, the album opens with coaching from a radio DJ. Hugh Cherry actually instructs the inmates to remain quiet until after the singer speaks.
“It was a piece of theater,” explained Atlanta author Paul Hemphill. The former Atlanta Journal columnist first got to know Cash when he traveled to Tennessee in 1969 to research “The Nashville Sound.” The book became the first in-depth history of country music (a new edition with a fresh introduction by Hemphill has been published by Everthemore Books). The writer hit town in the aftermath of Cash’s “Folsom” success. By then, the newly wed Cash and Carter were taping a variety show for ABC.
“To me, it’s no different than sitting in the Ryman Auditorium at the Grand Ole Opry,” Hemphill said. “They told the audience when to applaud there, too. It’s an old huckster show business trick.”
‘It stands tall’
Back in 1969, as Cash ripped into a fried trout at a Ramada Inn coffee shop, he talked to Hemphill about the after-effects of “Folsom” and his prison reform activism.
“I didn’t go into it thinking about it as a ‘crusade,’ ” Cash told Hemphill. “I just don’t think prisons do any good. They put ‘em in there and just make ‘em worse. … Nothing good ever came out of a prison. If I can get some good done by writing and singing songs about prisons, it’s a bonus.”
Streissguth said Cash, who died in 2005, might have welcomed the myth-busting new 40th anniversary edition of “Folsom Prison,” even with its extended peek behind the studio wizard’s curtain.
“The album is so important in Cash’s career and as a social statement, this [new edition] won’t dilute the impact of ‘Folsom,’ ” Streissguth said. “It still stands tall.”
Yet, there’s one piece of fiction still Scotch-taped to the new version: the canned crowd noise at the pivotal moment on the opening track.
According to Streissguth, Legacy A&R coordinator John Jackson told him: “It’s such an iconic moment, we couldn’t leave it out.”
Even if it never happened.
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