Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash (UkuleleJay)

Contrary to urban legend, Johnny Cash never spent any time in prison. As an inmate, that is. In 1951, while serving in the Air Force in Germany, Cash watched Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison, a film that depicted brutal conditions endured by inmates at the California institution. The scenes of tortuous violence affected Cash deeply and in 1957 he began performing in prisons, including a 1959 show at San Quentin which found inmate Merle Haggard in the front row.

But it was his performance at another California prison, Folsom State, that has become one of music’s most iconic moments. In the late 60s, Cash had fallen out of favor with the Nashville music industry, his career struggling as he fought drug addiction. He got sober in late 1967 and arrived at Folsom Prison on January 13, 1968—fifty years ago—to record a live album. “I was about as relaxed as a bug in a Roach Motel, being still new to the business of getting up on stage in front of people without a bloodstream full of drugs,” Cash wrote in his 1997 autobiography. “But once we were into it, that was one good show.”