At Folsom Prison [1999 Expanded Edition] [Remaster]

Performer: Johnny Cash
Artist: The Statler Brothers; June Carter Cash; The Carter Family
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: This is a multi-channel Super Audio CD playable only in Super Audio CD players. Personnel: Johnny Cash (vocals, guitar); June Carter, The Carter Family (vocals); Carl Perkins, Luther Perkins (electric guitar); Marshall Grant (drums); The Statler Brothers (background vocals). Producer: Bob Johnston. Reissue producer: Bob Irwin. Recorded live at Folsom Prison, Folsom, California on January 13, 1968. Includes liner notes by Johnny Cash and Steve Earle. Personnel: Johnny Cash (vocals, guitar); Johnny Cash; Al Casey (guitar); Carl Perkins (electric guitar); Marshall Grant (bass guitar); June Carter Cash, Carter Family, The Statler Brothers (vocals); Luther Perkins (electric guitar); W.S. Holland (drums). Audio Mixer: Vic Anesini. Liner Note Author: Johnny Cash. Recording information: Folsom Prison (01/13/1968). Author: Woody Pornpitaksuk. Photographer: Jim Marshall . Folsom Prison looms large in Johnny Cash's legacy, providing the setting for perhaps his definitive song and the location for his definitive album, At Folsom Prison. The ideal blend of mythmaking and gritty reality, At Folsom Prison is the moment when Cash turned into the towering Man in Black, a haunted troubadour singing songs of crime, conflicted conscience, and jail. Surely, this dark outlaw stance wasn't a contrivance but it was an exaggeration, with Cash creating this image by tailoring his set list to his audience of prisoners, filling up the set with tales of murder and imprisonment -- a bid for common ground with the convicts, but also a sly way to suggest that maybe Cash really did shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Given the cloud of death that hangs over the songs on At Folsom Prison, there's a temptation to think of it as a gothic, gloomy affair or perhaps a repository of rage, but what's striking about Cash's performance is that he never romanticizes either the crime or the criminals: if anything, he underplays the seriousness with his matter-of-fact ballad delivery or how he throws out wry jokes. Cash is relating to the prisoners and he's entertaining them too, singing "Cocaine Blues" like a bastard on the run, turning a death sentence into literal gallows humor on "25 Minutes to Go," playing "I Got Stripes" as if it were a badge of pride. Never before had his music seemed so vigorous as it does here, nor had he tied together his humor, gravity, and spirituality in one record. In every sense, it was a breakthrough, but more than that, At Folsom Prison is the quintessential Johnny Cash album, the place where his legend burns bright and eternal. [This Expanded Edition of At Folsom Prison added three bonus tracks to the songs included in the original 16-track LP.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine Want to hear part of the reason why Johnny Cash is an icon, a singer respected and influential in country, folk, and rock & roll? THIS is it! In 1968--one of the most tumultuous years in American history since the Depression years--Cash recorded an album live in front of a (literally) captive (but wildly appreciative) audience, in Folsom Prison. With two guitars, bass, drums, and a small vocal group (including Cash's wife June Carter Cash and the Statler Brothers), Cash sings his hits and lesser-known songs ("Send a Picture of Mother") and some haunting country standards ("Dark as a Dungeon"), as well as songs about REAL outlaws ("Cocaine Blues") to a rapt audience that hangs on every word. That boom-chicka-boom sound is sharp as the first mean wind of winter, and Cash is in fine fettle (though his voice cracks from time to time). With its unique setting, this is as harrowing an album as any ever recorded.

Rolling Stone (12/11/03, p.116) - Ranked #88 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time" - "...Essential Cash....The 2,000 inmates roar their approval..." Spin (p.86) - "[A] legendary 1968 concert, activist entertainment on a par with Bob Dylan and Public Enemy." Entertainment Weekly (9/26/03, p.34) - "...You get the sense that Cash could just as easily be in the audience as on stage at this raucous show, and the inmates know it..." Q (4/00, p.106) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...represents Cash at the peak of his powers, bringing a highly combustible mixture of joy and pain to 2000 excitable inmates....Any more real and full body armor would have had to be supplied." Uncut (3/00, p.74) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...It's an effortless and powerful performance....Touching..." CMJ (11/1/99, pp.24-5) - "...finally receiving a proper...reissue....Restored is Cash's salty stage-banter in all of its uncensored glory, alongside every one of the crowd's raucous, foot-stomping, hollering responses....repeatedly delivers the kind of goosebumps that few records can." Dirty Linen (p.46) - "Backed by the Tennessee Three, rockabilly guitarist Carl Perkins, and vocal group the Statler Brothers, the 'Man in Black' delivered a passionate mix of unsweetened folk balladry, honky tonk, blues and country gospel." Dirty Linen (2-3/00, pp.63,65) - "...an impressive performance document that gives a fuller sense of Cash's stage persona and his relationship with the audience....The song order has been corrected to the original performance....[with] 3 previously unreleased songs..." Q (Magazine) (p.123) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "[I]t chimed perfectly with the rebellious spirit of the times, becoming a turning point for country music..." Mojo (Publisher) (p.123) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Savour this for the original show in all its primal glory." Paste (magazine) (p.60) - "Cash's performance of inmate Glen Sherley's 'Greystone Chapel' is the highlight....It's no exaggeration to say that JOHNNY CASH AT FOLSOM PRISON is his masterwork." Clash (magazine) (p.97) - "AT FOLSOM PRISON is a record that has long been considered one of the most influential albums of the '60s....The raw vibe of the performance is captured perfectly..."

Johnny Cash was part rockabilly rebel, part campfire storyteller, part outlaw in black. Cash made country and rockabilly history on the Sun label in the 1950s. During the '60s, the ruggedly charismatic Cash rose to superstardom, ending the decade with both his marriage to June Carter and his own television show. In the '90s, Cash began his highly successful and acclaimed AMERICAN RECORDINGS series, reaching a new audience with an amazingly diverse set of songs, ranging from traditional tunes to alternative rock covers. With his lean, angular sound and hearty, passionate baritone, Cash forged one of the most unique styles in all of popular music, one that delved into gospel, folk, and rock, but also remained the essence of country music. Four months after his wife died, Johnny Cash passed away on September 12, 2003. And in 2005, the Oscar-nominated biopic WALK THE LINE brought Cash's music and legend to his largest audience yet.

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