The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
Johnny Cash · with June Carter and the Tennessee Three · produced by Bob Johnston · Columbia · recorded at Folsom State Prison, California, 13 January 1968
Mode
Country music recorded live inside a prison, for the prisoners, with their response kept as part of the record
Mythos
The descent among the condemned; the visitor to those in prison; the outlaw and the penitent as one figure; the chapel inside the walls
Phase
Sixteen songs on two sides, opening on a murder sung in the first person and closing on a prisoner’s hymn, with a comic run at the centre of side two
Presentation
Album; songs by Cash and other writers, his own, standards and recent material, with the stage talk and the audience between them, edited from the day’s two shows
Register
Plain and rough; one baritone voice over guitar, bass and drums in a spare beat, two duets with June Carter, and the room loud, laughing or silent
Scale
A singer, his band and the inmates of Folsom State Prison, California, on one day in January 1968
Governing Proposition
A country singer in decline goes into a state prison to record for the men held there, with a set chosen for them of murder, regret, labour and the gallows, and the record it makes shows that men condemned by the state remain an audience, who hear in these songs not entertainment about criminals but their own lives sung to them, and whose answer, kept on the record, is its meaning.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
The record opens with a greeting. “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash”, the singer says, and the band’s first beat comes in under the roar of the room. The song is “Folsom Prison Blues”, Cash’s own Sun record of 1955, and he is singing it in the place it names, to the men it is about. In the first verse the singer tells how he shot a man in Reno “to watch him die”, in the first person, and the room cheers the line. It is the record’s height and its claim at once. A singer has arrived among the condemned, and he has come as one of them.
The concert was given at Folsom State Prison, California, on 13 January 1968, and the record was produced by Bob Johnston and released by Columbia that year. Cash sang and played guitar with the Tennessee Three: Luther Perkins, electric guitar; Marshall Grant, bass; W. S. Holland, drums. June Carter sings with him on two duets. Two shows were given that day, and Johnston edited the LP from them into one set of sixteen songs on two sides, seven on the first and nine on the second, with the stage talk and the audience between the songs. That record, as first released, is the work judged here. The later expanded editions, which add material from the day, are evidence, not the object.
In a studio the song is about a prisoner. Here it is sung to prisoners, and the cheer at the Reno line is not decoration: it is what the record knows. That is the disclosure the rest of the record holds to. Men condemned by the state remain an audience, and they hear in songs of murder, regret and execution not entertainment about criminals but their own lives sung to them. The room answers, and the answer, kept on the record, is the meaning. It is credited as fully as anything said in words.
Movement II
Side one runs from the crime through labour and longing to the gallows. “Dark as the Dungeon”, Merle Travis’s song, brings labour in, the miner as another man buried. “I Still Miss Someone”, written by Cash with Roy Cash Jr., has a quiet tenderness, love and its loss. “Cocaine Blues”, by T. J. Arnall, returns to addiction and violence. Of the sixteen songs on the record, ten have prison or execution as their matter, and in seven a killing, an execution or a death is the subject. Five of the sixteen are Cash’s, written or shared.
Then Shel Silverstein’s “25 Minutes to Go”, a condemned man counting down to his hanging, minute by minute. It is a comic song, and the room laughs at first. As the count falls the jokes stop landing as jokes, and the laughter turns to dread before men some of whom face the same end. The song needs the room for this: in a studio it would be a novelty, and here it is the sound of an audience discovering what it is laughing at. The form of the record is the instrument of what it knows, and nowhere more than here.
The playing is plain by design. The Tennessee Three keep a spare beat, Perkins’s muted single-string figures over bass and drums, and it is exactly what the songs need and no more. Cash’s voice is rough, and he turns the roughness to use; he holds the room with timing and talk. The palette is small, and the costs show. “Orange Blossom Special”, Ervin T. Rouse’s train song, follows the countdown as a showpiece, energy more than height, and it is ragged. It is the first of the tracks the record permits rather than requires.
Movement III
Side one closes on “The Long Black Veil”, by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin: a dead man’s account of his own hanging. The height here is cold and still. The singer narrates from the grave, and the room, which cheered the Reno line, listens. Between the first song and this one the side has gone from a man who kills to the gallows, and the killer has become the hanged.
The record builds a myth, and builds it by the event more than by any song. A singer goes down into the prison to sing to the damned: the descent among the condemned, the visitor to those in prison of the Gospel’s judgment scene. He comes as one of them, a murderer in the first song, and the outlaw and the penitent are one figure through the record. The particular stays particular: Folsom, a California morning in January, a named inmate whose song will close it. Several songs are borrowed types, the train song and later the comic duet, and they evoke the pattern rather than bear it.
The turn was in the setting and the frame. The country album of 1968 was a set of studio songs around a single, and a live album was recorded before a paying public. Cash recorded inside a prison, for the prisoners, with a set chosen for them in which death, prison and execution make up most of the record. The stake was real. He was a declining star with a known history of drugs, the label is reported to have been doubtful, the songs suited no country radio format, and the performance could fail before the people it was for. But he had played prisons since the late 1950s, and the music is the Tennessee Three’s established sound.
Movement IV
Side two opens on mail from home and the walls. “Send a Picture of Mother”, Cash’s own, and Harlan Howard’s “The Wall” are prison songs sung inside. Then the comic run: Jack Clement’s “Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog” and “Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart”, and “Jackson” with June Carter, three songs together at the centre of the side. The room laughs, and the laughter is the prison’s own. The show needs release, but one of the three would serve it, and “Jackson” is a hit duet brought in from outside the record’s matter. Here the order serves the show’s pacing rather than the argument.
Yet one law governs the record, and the comic songs obey it. Every song is heard as sung to the condemned, and the room’s response is the test. The pun song and the execution dream stand furthest apart, and the same voice and the same room carry both: the men who laugh at the bathroom of a heart will listen in silence to the gallows. The range runs from murder ballad and mining lament to train showpiece, comic duet and hymn, and it holds without a break. It loosens at “Jackson” and “Orange Blossom Special”, which keep the show’s convention more than the room’s.
The record as heard is a made thing. Johnston’s recording keeps the voice forward and the room alive around it, and his edit makes two shows into one shaped set, so that the form is partly his. It is reported that some of the audience’s response was strengthened afterward, and the extent has been argued over and is not known. That bears on the record’s claim to be the room, and it is charged to the making, not to the performances, which it does not reach. The expanded editions have let the selection and the editing be studied against the day.
Movement V
The family comes in late and from inside. “Give My Love to Rose”, Cash’s, sung with June Carter, holds a wife and son. “I Got Stripes” is the work gang. Curly Putman’s “Green, Green Grass of Home” dreams of home and parents, and the room is silent through it until the last verse turns the dream into the morning of an execution. Then “Greystone Chapel”, written by Glen Sherley, an inmate of Folsom, and sung back to him in the room: a chapel built by the prisoners’ hands, where a man can be free inside the walls. The record that opened on a killing ends in grace, on a plain, raised note.
The record held a great deal. The state as prison, guards, walls, stripes and the gallows, not as abstraction but as the room; labour in the mine and the gang; the family in a mother’s picture, a wife and son, a dream of home; love and its loss, addiction and violence, death throughout, and the sacred at the close, all held together by one place and one audience. History and the natural order are absent or glimpsed, and consciousness is held in song types more than in an interior. The songs are plain and give most of what they give at first hearing; the return is to the occasion and the room more than to the music.
What followed is on the record of the years after. The album reached the top of the Billboard country album chart and the pop top twenty, and the live “Folsom Prison Blues” was a No. 1 country single. It restored Cash’s career and led directly to At San Quentin (1969) and the television years; it gave country the stance its outlaw movement built on; prison records followed, B.B. King’s Live in Cook County Jail (1971) among them. It is on the National Recording Registry and has stayed in print as issued. It stands below the summit because its swerve was in the frame and not the music, and because what it discloses is shown warmly from the stage more than articulated. What it made audible was the answer of men the state had condemned.
Act III · The Twelve
Sixteen songs, and the frame is compelled. “Folsom Prison Blues” must open, sung in the place it names, and “Greystone Chapel” must close, a song written by a man in the room and sung back to him. Between them most songs are chosen for this audience: “25 Minutes to Go” counts down a hanging before men some of whom face the same, and “The Wall” and “Send a Picture of Mother” are prison songs sung inside. The test bites in the middle of side two, where three comic songs run together; the show needs release, but one would serve it, and “Jackson” is a hit duet from outside the record’s matter. “Orange Blossom Special” is a showpiece more than a part. About a fifth of the record is permitted rather than compelled.
Score: 7.7 / 10
The disclosure can be stated and holds: men condemned by the state remain an audience, and they hear in songs of murder, regret and execution not entertainment about criminals but their own lives sung to them. The record makes it audible. The roar after the murder in “Folsom Prison Blues”, the laughter at lines about guards and walls, the silence through “Green, Green Grass of Home” until its last verse turns the dream of home into the morning of an execution: the room answers, and the answer is the disclosure, credited fully as sound. Held below the gate: the condition is shown from the stage’s side, warmly, more than articulated, and the comic run and the show business of “Jackson” let it go slack.
Score: 8.3 / 10
Elevation is real and comes several times, mostly of the dreadful kind. The opening is the record’s height: “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash”, the band’s first beat and the roar of the room, a singer’s arrival among the condemned. “The Long Black Veil” reaches a cold, still height, a dead man narrating his own hanging. “25 Minutes to Go” turns comedy into dread as the count falls; “Green, Green Grass of Home” lifts at its turn; “Greystone Chapel” ends on a plain, raised note of grace; “I Still Miss Someone” has a quiet tenderness. Five or six of sixteen tracks rise. The comic run, the showpiece and “Jackson” have energy more than height, and the rough voice rarely soars: the elevation comes by situation and plainness, not by musical ascent.
Score: 7.9 / 10
The myth is built, and built by the event more than by any single song. A singer goes down into the prison to sing to the damned, the visitor to those in prison of the Gospel’s judgment scene, and he comes as one of them, opening on a murder done “to watch him die” in the first person. The sequence carries it from that killing through the condemned man’s countdown, the hanged lover of “The Long Black Veil” and the dream of home that is an execution, to a chapel built by the prisoners’ hands, where a man can be free inside the walls. The outlaw and the penitent are one figure. Held below the gate: several songs are borrowed types, the train song and the comic duet, that evoke rather than bear the structure.
Score: 8.3 / 10
The inheritance is the country album of 1968, studio songs gathered around a single, and the clean live album recorded before a paying public. The turn is to record inside a prison, for the prisoners, with a set chosen for them: death, prison and execution make up most of the record, the stage talk is rough, the audience is kept as part of the work, and a prisoner’s song closes it. The stake was real: a declining star with a known drug history, a label reported to be doubtful, songs no country radio format wanted, and a performance that could fail before the people it was for. Held from the top: Cash had played prisons for a decade, the songs were proven, and the swerve is in setting and frame, not in the music.
Score: 8.1 / 10
Change the form and the record stops knowing what it knows. In a studio “Folsom Prison Blues” is a song about a prisoner; here it is a song sung to prisoners, and the cheer at the Reno line is the knowledge, not decoration. “25 Minutes to Go” needs the room for its jokes to land as dread, and “Greystone Chapel” means what it means because its writer is listening. The sequence is counted here, once: side one moves from the crime through labour, longing and the gallows; side two from mail from home through the comic release to wife and son, stripes, the execution dream and the chapel. Held short of the top by the middle of side two, which serves the show’s pacing, and by the edit, which makes the form partly Johnston’s.
Score: 8.3 / 10
Evidence over fifty-eight years, real and bounded. The record is returned to as a document: the expanded editions have let the LP’s selection and editing be studied against the day; the reported strengthening of the audience afterward has been argued over; books, a documentary on the concert and Glen Sherley’s story have kept it open, and its songs are performed and recorded again. The semantic depth is narrower than the historical: the songs are plain by design and give at first hearing most of what they give, and much of the return is to the occasion and the man more than to the music. The well yields mostly in history and in the room’s response, which renews on each hearing. That holds the figure under 8.
Score: 7.9 / 10
The field is country and popular music of the 1960s. The intrinsic force: the record made the live album a document of a place and an audience rather than a souvenir of a show, and set the condemned and the poor at the centre of a major-label country record; it reorganised less what music was than whom it was for and where it was heard. The musical language itself redirected little, and the outlaw stance had other sources, Merle Haggard’s among them. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: it restored Cash’s career and led directly to At San Quentin (1969) and the television years; it gave country the stance the outlaw movement of the next decade built on; prison records followed, B.B. King’s Live in Cook County Jail (1971) among them; and later rock, punk and hip-hop artists have claimed the image it made.
Score: 8.3 / 10
Survival is weighed over fifty-eight years on form, presence and fabric. The form survives whole: the LP as issued has stayed in print, and the expanded editions add to it without replacing it. Presence is wide and continuous: the album is heard whole as the defining live record of its genre, its title song stays in broadcast, it is on the National Recording Registry, and its occasion is known to people who know little else of country music. Part of that presence is the image of Cash rather than the record, and wide presence earns only so much. The fabric carries its date in sound, but the date is the event, and the band’s plain sound has not dated as a production style dates. It stands level with Live at the Apollo at 8.8 and below Kind of Blue at 9.0, whose survival is wider.
Score: 8.8 / 10
Command of the recorded medium, and it lies in performance and capture. Cash holds the room with timing, talk and a voice whose roughness he turns to use; the Tennessee Three’s spare beat, Luther Perkins’s muted single-string figures over it, is exactly what the songs need and no more; June Carter’s duets are sharp. Johnston’s recording keeps the voice forward and the room alive around it, and the edit makes two shows into one shaped set. The costs are real. The musical means are narrow and the band commands a small palette; the voice sometimes misses; “Orange Blossom Special” is ragged; and the reported strengthening of the audience afterward bears on the record’s claim to be the room. Load-bearing in places, not throughout.
Score: 8.2 / 10
One law governs the record: every song is heard as sung to the condemned, and the room’s response is the test. The two most distant elements are “Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart”, a pun song, and “Green, Green Grass of Home”, an execution dream. They obey the same law: the laughter is the prison’s own, the release of men who also listen in silence to the gallows, and the same voice and the same room carry both. The range is wide, from murder ballad and mining lament to train showpiece, comic duet and hymn, and it holds. The law loosens at “Jackson” and “Orange Blossom Special”, which obey the show’s convention more than the room’s, and the comic run of three strains it. No break; two or three tracks held by habit.
Score: 8.1 / 10
Judged on what the record holds, with no discount for the album form. The state is held, as prison, guards, walls, stripes and the gallows, and not as abstraction: it is the room. Labour is held in the mine of “Dark as the Dungeon” and the work gang of “I Got Stripes”. The family is held: a mother’s picture, a wife and son in “Give My Love to Rose”, home and parents in “Green, Green Grass of Home”. Love and its loss, addiction and violence, death throughout, and the sacred in “Greystone Chapel”, all integrated by one place and one audience. What holds the axis lowest of the twelve: history and the natural order are absent or glimpsed, and consciousness is held in song types more than in an interior.
Score: 7.6 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
8.1 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier IV · Canonical
Strongest Dimensions
The Imperishable at 8.8, then The Unconcealment, The Archetypal Deep, The Living Form and Pressure on Tradition at 8.3. A record in print as issued for fifty-eight years and heard whole as the defining live record of its genre; a disclosure made by the room’s answer; a descent among the condemned built by the sequence from a murder to a chapel; a form in which the setting changes what each song means; and a frame that changed whom a country record was for.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 7.6: the state, labour, the family, love, violence, death and the sacred are held and integrated by one place, and history and the natural order are absent or glimpsed. Then The Inevitable at 7.7, where the comic run and the showpiece are permitted rather than compelled, and The Sublime and The Bottomless Well at 7.9: height comes by situation and plainness on five or six of sixteen tracks, and the return is more to the occasion than to the music.
The Necessity Cap clears at 7.7 against a threshold of 7.5. The Coherence Floor clears: The Living Form at 8.3, The Made at 8.2, The Inner Law at 8.1, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is unmet: The Imperishable at 8.8 clears the bar of 8.5, but The Unconcealment, The Archetypal Deep and Pressure on Tradition at 8.3 and The Swerve at 8.1 fall short. The Universal Minimum is met: no axis but The Encompassed falls below 7.7, against 7.5, and The Encompassed, which is exempted, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 7.6. The summit is withheld by the Epochal Gate, and by the aggregate, which stands at 8.1, below the 9.0 the summit requires.
Basis · the LP as first released by Columbia in 1968, recorded at Folsom State Prison, California, on 13 January 1968 and produced by Bob Johnston: sixteen tracks in their original order, seven on side one and nine on side two, with the stage talk and the audience between songs, as edited from the day’s two shows. Judged from knowledge of the recording, its making and its reception; no recording, sleeve or lyric sheet was in hand. The later expanded editions are evidence for survival and for the making, not the object. Songs are cited by title and writer, and paraphrased; nothing is quoted but the greeting “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash” and four words of “Folsom Prison Blues”. The reported strengthening of the audience in post-production is stated as reported, its extent unknown. Facts that could not be verified are not given: among them the month of release, the running time and track lengths, which tracks come from which show, whether Carl Perkins and the Statler Brothers are heard on the record, the prison’s announcements between songs, the contents and dates of the expanded editions, the state of Cash’s voice on the day, the record’s exact pop chart position, the year of its entry in the National Recording Registry, and the later life of Glen Sherley.