At Folsom Prison
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Media Type: CD
Artist: CASH,JOHNNY
Title: AT FOLSOM PRISON
Street Release Date: 10/19/1999
List Price: $ 7.99
Price: $ 3.78
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At Folsom Prison
January 27, 2012 By 3 Comments
Crucial record for every music fan,
The impact of Johnny Cash’s proto bad-boy on country, blues, and rock is inestimable, which doesn’t even speak to the fact that the man is a great entertainer. If you are a serious music fan, your musical education isn’t complete without Live At Folsom Prison.
This isn’t a singles record, this is an album; you put it on to hear the whole thing. The performance itself is tight and structured, just like the venue. The recording is especially atmospheric – the reverb bouncing off the concrete walls, the sounds of doors slamming in the background, and an interruption by a prison announcement. Cash and the band (which includes the brilliant Luther Perkins, and his brother Carl – think Blue Suede Shoes) seem unflappable and completely at ease, belying the actual tension of the gig.
This reissue restores the original recording to its raw, warts-and all-feel, in direct contrast to the sanitized version that I grew up with: four songs have been restored to the set due to increased available length, plus Cash’s interaction with the audience and the profanity (tasteful by today’s standards) has been re-introduced, revealing the incredibly gritty nature of this record. Plus, the packaging is incredible: the handwritten note from Cash, describing why he felt compelled to make this album, the liner notes, and an appreciation from Steve Earle round out the package to create not merely a reissue, but a full restoration.
If you are hungry for something more substantial than the latest Clapton disc or Zeppelin reissue, you won’t regret a minute of this terrific album.
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|Egg Suckin’ Dog,
I am definitely not a country music fan, but Johnny Cash goes way beyond the country music spectrum. With songs about boozin’, druggin’, and killin’, Johnny Cash blows away most rock artists. Nothing proves that more than “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison”. Recorded live in 1968, in front of 2000 inmates, this is a really rockin’ concert. Cash relates to the prisoners’ lives with songs like “Folsom Prison Blues”, “Cocaine Blues”, and even some humorous tunes like “Dirty old egg-suckin’ dog”. The band, including Carl Perkins on Electric guitar, keeps a clanky, driving, two-beat rhythm that makes this more of a rock-a-billy album than a country album. The CD includes photos of the concert and honest, heart-felt linear notes of the show, written by Cash himself in June of 1999.
After reading these memoirs, you start to realize how much of an event this show must have been, not just to the inmates, but to Cash himself, who apparently is no stranger to Folsom Prison himself.
Johnny Cash is Badass, so if your thinking about picking up that new Creed CD, (not that you would be) DON’T! Pick this up instead.
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|RIP Johnny, this is a classic,
When I heard Johnny Cash had passed away, I was saddened to know his booming baritone would be silent now. I turned on the radio, hoping to catch some fleeting moments of the Man in Black’s life in song. Instead, each and every country station (with one or two exceptions) seemed to be going about “business as usual”, with nothing besides a “RIP Johnny” message, no full-fledged celebrations of his music to be found.
So I went out and bought Folsom Prison, as I didn’t have any Cash records in my collection. Let me just say: I wish I’d gotten this earlier, it’s absolutely fantastic. Being in the South, I couldn’t help but grow up with country music, but as I got older the modern stuff began to turn into Garth Brooks-like medeocrity dressed up in loud clothes, and I found more substance in the entire body of rock music (from the Sun Studio days to English punk rock). I never thought I’d like country music…until I realized that the older stuff, like Cash and Waylon and Willie, that was the good stuff. The rebels of country music weren’t pre-packaged pretty boys who strutted around singing other people’s words with the emotion of a too-good-for-my-pants primadonna. These were men who grew up during the Depression, who sang about the hard times, the heartbreak, the loss, the depravity of life.
So Johnny Cash and his peers keep me from hating country music entirely, and this (as well as the Oh Brother soundtrack) have found a welcome place in my record collection. RIP Johnny, you will be missed. I couldn’t have picked a better record to get to honor your memory.
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