1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 120. Johnny Cash – At Folsom Prison (1968)

 

Cash is one of those artists where you kind of know what you’re going to get. A voice like a man who has drunk all of the bourbon, singing country songs about a hard life and an easy death. Having written Folsom Prison Blues (“I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die”), Cash was keen to actually play in the prison itself, and here, after dragging himself out of addiction and getting a new manager willing to take the risk, he does just that, accompanied by June Carter on a couple of songs (including a rip-roaring version of their famous duet Jackson).

Plenty of songs about prison life (The Wall, Green Green Grass of Home) but a few comic turns as well like Dirty Old Egg-Suckin' Dog and the blackly comic 25 Minutes to Go where a condemned man counts down the minutes before his execution. Although he’s The Man in Black singing songs about prison, death, and murder, Cash has a wry sense of humour in the between-songs banter, and there are some interesting bits of prison life recorded as well, including how the prisoners are meant to behave once the show is over (stay seated until recalled to their cell).

Cash is a much more earthy country singer than some of those we’ve had before, and as I’ve said before, when he sings about killing his lover in a jealous cocaine-fuelled rage, you really believe the story. This is probably also the first live album since the Jerry Lee Lewis one where it really captures the atmosphere of the occasion as well, made more interesting by the unusual venue.