ATLANTA — As it turns out, one of the most iconic moments in American music history is the result of a razor blade, a prerecorded hunk of hollering and some Scotch tape.
On “Folsom Prison Blues,” the opening track of Johnny Cash’s landmark live album, “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison,” the Man in Black darkly intones: “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” The 1,000 inmates packed into the California prison’s cafeteria that Jan. 16, 1968, morning screamed, whistled and wildly applauded the musical murder.
For 40 years, music fans have regarded the chilling moment as a key component in the DNA of Cash’s career-making mystique.
But it never happened.
Columbia Records producer Bob Johnston later spliced the crowd response into the song.
Writer Michael Streissguth discovered the bit of larcenous creative license while he was researching his 2004 book, “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece.” Streissguth was in a studio listening to the master tapes of the concert with Sony Legacy engineers. On the weathered reel-to-reel tape, the moment whizzed past without any audience eruption.
Curious, the writer and the engineers pulled out the edited master. Sure enough, on the final version when Cash’s iconic line was cued up, the spliced-in, taped-up edit was evident.
“It floored me,” Streissguth recalled. “I had bought into the drama and authenticity of that moment along with everyone else. I didn’t even know if Sony was going to allow me to leave the studio with the information!”
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the classic Cash recording, Legacy has opted to pull back the curtain on almost all the myths long associated with the session that day via a new “Folsom Prison” boxed set. The three-disc set, which includes a new 90-minute documentary directed by Bestor Cram and written by Streissguth, arrives in stores Tuesday.
A folk hero emerges
The album turned Cash into a folk hero and a multiplatinum recording artist. And “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison” would also eventually earn one inmate freedom.
Like many creative endeavors, the process began with an argument. Then-Columbia Records president Clive Davis cautioned Cash against making a live album at a prison, warning him that it could kill his career.
Undaunted, Cash, who had become accustomed to playing in prisons, knew there was an energy inside the walls that could be captured on a live recording.
“You can feel the electricity and the excitement in that room,” country star Travis Tritt said. “For me, that album is a Live Performance 101 class,” Tritt said.
“The crowd reaction was amazing. Johnny Cash was speaking their language on that cafeteria stage. Even the real bad guys in that hall were with him.”
Flexing some street cred
While Cash had never done any hard time, he had spent enough time behind bars to familiarize himself with the isolation.
On the “Folsom” back cover, Cash scrawls in the liner notes: “You count the steel bars on the door so many times that you hate yourself for it . . . There is nothing to look forward to.”
Giving prisoners something to look forward to became a primary objective of the 1968 Folsom appearance.
Cash, clad in a leather jacket, was escorted into the prison with his band, the Tennessee Three, girlfriend June Carter, photographer Jim Marshall, Los Angeles Times reporter Robert Hilburn and opening acts the Stadler Brothers and rockabilly legend Carl Perkins.
The grim, black-bedecked entourage could have been trudging toward the gas chamber as the gates clanged shut behind them. A small white piece of bathroom tissue clung to Cash’s face, the result of a shaving slip.
Much of the material Cash selected lyrically sliced as deep: the murderous and misogynistic “Cocaine Blues,” the death row ditty “25 Minutes to Go” and “I Got Stripes.” Cash also peppered the performance with the humorous, prisoner-pleasing “Dirty Old Egg Sucking Dog” and “Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart.”
A song, then freedom
Carter emerged to the inmates’ delight to do a duet and flirt with Cash on “Jackson.” And Cash ended the show by performing “Greystone Chapel,” a song about the prison’s house of worship written by budding songwriter, singer and Folsom inmate Glen Shirley.
Shirley, who was seated in the front row, was stunned. The fame of the song on the eventual “Folsom” album, coupled with Cash’s public support, eventually earned Shirley early release from Folsom.
In Legacy’s new boxed set, for the first time fans will have an opportunity to hear the day’s second show. Also included are tracks from the Stadler Brothers and Perkins warming up the crowd. The set also includes two additional duets with Carter and one more myth-crushing realization.
For 40 years, the first thing fans have heard on the “Folsom” album is complete silence until Cash steps to the microphone and says “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.” Thunderous applause then ricochets throughout the room as Cash and crew bang into the opening strains of “Folsom Prison Blues.”
In the new Legacy edition, the album opens with coaching from a radio deejay. Hugh Cherry actually instructs the inmates to remain quiet until after the singer speaks.
“It was a piece of theater,” explained author Paul Hemphill.
The former Atlanta Journal columnist first got to know Cash when he traveled to Tennessee in 1969 to research “The Nashville Sound.” The book became the first in-depth history of country music (a new edition with a fresh introduction by Hemphill has been published by Everthemore Books). The writer hit town in the aftermath of Cash’s “Folsom” success. By then, the newly wed Cash and Carter were taping a variety show for ABC.
Streissguth said Cash, who died in 2005, might have welcomed the myth-busting new 40th anniversary edition of “Folsom Prison,” even with its extended peek behind the studio wizard’s curtain.
“The album is so important in Cash’s career and as a social statement, this (new edition) won’t dilute the impact of ‘Folsom,’ ” Streissguth said. “It still stands tall.” Yet, there’s one piece of fiction still Scotch-taped to the new version: the canned crowd noise at the pivotal moment on the opening track.
According to Streissguth, Legacy A&R coordinator John Jackson told him: “It’s such an iconic moment, we couldn’t leave it out.”
Even if it never happened.
