Folsom Prison Blues

“Folsom Prison Blues” is a song by American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash. Written in 1953, it was first recorded in 1955 for his debut studio album Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! (1957), appearing as the album’s eleventh track. Borrowing liberally from Gordon Jenkins’ 1953 song, “Crescent City Blues”, the song combines elements from two popular folk styles, the train song and the prison song, both of which Cash continued to use for the rest of his career. It was one of Cash’s signature songs. Additionally, this recording was included on the compilation album All Aboard the Blue Train (1962). In June 2014, Rolling Stone ranked it No. 51 on its list of the 100 greatest country songs of all time. Cash performed the song live to a crowd of inmates at Folsom State Prison in 1968 for his live album At Folsom Prison (1968), released through Columbia Records. This version became a No. 1 hit on the country music charts and reached No. 32 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the same year. This version also won the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance, Male, at the 11th Annual Grammy Awards in 1969. Cash was inspired to write this song after seeing the movie Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison (1951) while serving in West Germany in the United States Air Force at Landsberg, Bavaria (itself the location of a famous prison). Cash recounted how he came up with the line “But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die”: “I sat with my pen in my hand, trying to think up the worst reason a person could have for killing another person, and that’s what came to mind. Cash took the melody for the song and many of the lyrics from Gordon Jenkins’s 1953 Seven Dreams concept album, specifically the song “Crescent City Blues”. Jenkins was not credited on the original record, which was issued by Sun Records. In the early 1970s, after the song became popular, Cash paid Jenkins a settlement of approximately US$75,000 following a lawsuit. “Folsom Prison Blues” was recorded at the Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee on July 30, 1955. The producer was Sam Phillips, and the musicians were Cash (vocals, guitar), Luther Perkins (guitar), and Marshall Grant (bass) Like other songs recorded during his early Sun Records sessions, Cash had no drummer in the studio, but replicated the snare drum sound by inserting a piece of paper (like a dollar bill) under the guitar strings and strumming the snare rhythm on his guitar. The song’s sound has been described as country, rockabilly, and rock and roll. The song was released as a single with another song recorded at the same session, “So Doggone Lonesome”. Early in 1956, both sides reached No. 4 on the Billboard C&W Best Sellers chart. When photographer Jim Marshall asked Cash why the song’s main character was serving time in California’s Folsom Prison after shooting a man in Reno, Nevada, he responded, “That’s called poetic license.