Thursday, 24 January 2013

Johnny Cash and his prison reform campaign

On 26 July 1972, three grizzled-looking men dressed uneasily in suits gave evidence at a US Senate subcommittee on prison reform. Two of the men were former inmates of some of the toughest prisons in the US - the third was the country and western singer, Johnny Cash.
Cash's famous live albums recorded at Folsom Prison and San Quentin are the stuff of music legend - likely to feature on any critic's list of defining albums of the 1960s.
But it's much less well-known that these were only two of many prison concerts Cash played over the course of almost 30 years.
Fitting the gigs in around his relentless touring schedule, the "Man in Black" performed for inmates all over the US, always unpaid, and in the process, became a passionate and vocal spokesman for prisoners' rights.
"He always identified with the underdog," says Tommy Cash, Johnny's youngest brother.
"He identified with the prisoners because many of them had served their sentences and had been rehabilitated in some cases, but were still kept there the rest of their lives. He felt a great empathy with those people."
The roots of Cash's empathy lie as far back as 1953, when as a 21-year-old radio operator in the US Air Force, he saw the film Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison and was inspired to write a song.
Folsom Prison Blues, released two years later, after Cash had signed to Sun Records, turned the young singer into a star.
The song, and in particular the now-notorious line "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die," was sung with such raw menace that many assumed Cash knew what he was talking about.
"There's people today that you can talk to and they will believe that he actually did that," says WS "Fluke" Holland, Johnny's larger-than-life former drummer.
"Johnny Cash shot a man to watch him die. He was a mean dude," he chuckles then shakes his head. "The only time he was in prison is when we played in them..."

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