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Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece

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For anyone who is not familair with the 1968 recorded "live" album, it is recommended that you give a listen and experience the album first...Cash at Folsom Prison was perhaps the first recording made in quite a while combining a musical event with a genuine social statement. As a result, it seemed ominously fitting that this legendary Cash LP was made in the turbulent year of 1968, in a maximum security prison no less, only to become one of the years best selling albums. If any year could be perfectly represented by one piece of recorded music, it was 1968's JOHNNY CASH AT FOLSOM PRISON. The author explains exactly how Cash (who was denied the chance to record a live prison LP years earlier) and Columbia Records went about planning this album, how it was recorded by producer Bob Johnson, how it was carefully edited & released, and what the publics reaction was. Yet, page after page, Streissguth, brings the little known story of the recording and the history of the event together like a beautifully made documentary. Most of all this book strengthens the powerful message and experience of AT FOLSOM PRISON and gives the recording a new found dimension that enables it to still be considered one of greatest "live" album events in popular music history. RECOMMENDED!

This short book, probably less than 100 pages if you take out pictures and account for unused page space, is the recounting of Johnny Cash's 1968 recording of "Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison," the album that catapulted Cash into superstardom and highlighted for a generation the misery of prisoners life behind bars. Streissguth does an excellent job of telling about the concert and giving the back-story behinds the original idea, as well as why it ended up as an iconic album.

One would do well to learn about this instant in the long career of Cash and how it changed him and America. I highly recommend this book for a quick afternoon read.

In 1969 Cash performed at Folsom Prison in California and produced a title album Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison which as to make him a superstar in the country world. Michael Streissguth's Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison: The Making Of A Masterpiece is no ordinary biography of Cash, which has been done before: it's a survey of that performance, what led to it, and what came out of it, richly enhanced by the author's access to Folsom Prison and Columbia Record archives and illustrated with over 100 rare photos. A 'must' for Cash fans.

I'm disappointed more often than not at the rock bios that flood the market when a performer dies. Not only are they inaccurate and full of rumor, but they often spend too much time dwelling on mundane childhood details ("...then, at age 6, he moved to grandma's house...").

This book rises to the occasion and gives us an in-depth look at the events leading up to and including the day that Johnny Cash took his band of musicians (including Carl Perkins and the Statler Brothers) to Folsom Prison for a morning concert to be recorded for an LP. The author successfully traces the seeds of Cash's care for the prisoners, not sidestepping the obvious marketing advantages to his outlaw status.

At Folsom Prison is extremely well-researched and Streissguth obviously has a background in country music. For casual fans of the music of the 60's this is a great primer, but for those of us who've listened to the album again and again this is the definitive companion to the recordings. [Note: If there's anything disappointing about the book it's that there isn't more of it. Since it's heavy with admittedly amazing photographs from that day it's pretty short. You'll read it in one sitting.]

When I saw this book on the shelves, I grabbed it. As the title states, Johnny Cash at Folsom prison is a masterpiece. Unfortunately, this book is anything but. The story, which really requires no elaboration, is marred by writing which is so excruciatingly bad in places that I found myself wincing. Instead of being able to focus on the story, I was irritated by a neverending series of atrocious similes and metaphors. Open the book at random, and they jump out like fleas. Page 25: "Cash glided through the grim lyric [of Folsom Prison Blues] like a harrow through soft, pebbly earth." Next page: "[Cash's 1950's recordings] strutted rock and roll style and ached like cracked dry skin, far scalier than the Nashville Sound that was melting over country music..." This is unfortunate because the book is, or appears to be, well-researched. If an editor's pen had excised the purple prose, this might have been a good book.

This is a good book about a great album. It gives a very detailed account of the events leading up to the recording of the album, the concert itself and the aftermath of the album's release. It also goes into details about Folsom Prison itself, which most Johnny Cash fans are probably not aware of. This is a very informative book that Johnny Cash's fans will probably enjoy.

A new biography of an American legend based on interviews with Tennesseans and the archives of Cash's manager proves why this man is so beloved by so many

Overall a very good book on the legend plus June Carter, Carl Perkins and the rest of Johnnys' band making their famous concert recording at Folsom in 1968. Many, many great pictures that you probably won't find anywhere else!!

For Johnny Cash fans, this book tells the back-story for the making of his Folsom Prison album in 1968, complete with a large selection of photos taken during rehearsals and performance. Cash, Carl Perkins, and the Statler Brothers made up the entire program that day (there were two performances), along with June Carter. An unusual recording for any time in the history of music, "Folsom Prison" came about almost entirely through the persistent efforts of Cash and his producer Bob Johnston, who fought Columbia Records every step of the way to make the project happen.

Author Streissguth's book is written in Rolling Stone style prose, with enthusiasm for the music and the performer and a degree of high drama. His argument is that the album not only helped Cash back onto the charts, after a long fallow period, but made of him a legend. The year being 1968 and the spirit of the times revolutionary, his drawing attention to the men in American prisons converged with the growth of social protest against any form of oppression and the recurrent American fascination with the outlaw.

Altogether, the book is long on personality and short on the music itself. We learn the history of Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues," largely stolen from another songwriter, and "Greystone Chapel," written by a current Folsom inmate, and we are told of how the characteristic style of his back-up musicians evolved in the early years. But beyond this there is little exploration of the songs that make up the album and how they were performed, and very little is disclosed about the creative decisions that went into post-production, though it is revealed that the audience response to "I shot a man in Reno" was added after the fact. A fine companion piece for the film "Walk the Line," the book is definitely for fans, a time capsule for a moment of music history in the late 1960s.

"Folsom Prison Blues" is arguably the greatest live album ever made and this book does an excellent job of showing haw this album came about and why it was so important in the the career of Johnny Cash and Country Music.
Nobody had any idea at the time how important this concert and its recording would be when it was conceived ,performed and recorded.Particularly those in the establishment,who had no idea at the time,what lay in store for Cash.In fact,most felt that his future was dim at best.Even Johnny himself,couldn't have had any idea of the future career that was in store for him.He persevered in doing this concert for no other reason than a personal desire to do something for his fellow travellers on this hard road of life.
Yes, it was the fans,prisoners and the ordinary people who faced and lived through the trials of life that Cash wrote and sang about ;that saw the greatness and sinceriety that came through Cash's music,and it was they that made him the legend that he came to be and deserved.
Through his long and often troubled life;Cash always managed to rise to the occassion and give us his music that was so poignent.
He had that great gift of being able to see and feel parts of life,that we all know about,but feel there is little one can do about it.What Cash did so well was to show us that there was always hope. On page 160 we see a picture of Johnny watching June hug Glen Sherley when he arrived in Nashville after being released from prison.You will look for a long time before you will ever see the happiness that Johnny showed for this man who had finally found a good turn in his life.
We ware all better for having had Johnny Cash to have seen and bring his music to us and it is likely that we would all have been poorer for it ;if Cash had never done that concert on January 13,1968 in Folsum Prison.
Thanks to Michael Streissguth for telling us how it all came about.

"Till things are brighter,I'm the Man in Black."