I absolutely love music-related books that deal with the making of a single album – the background of the songs, the in-fighting, the reasonings for the packaging – to me, it’s all so completely interesting. Since 2002, my favorite behind-the-scenes book was David Quantick’s REVOLUTION: THE MAKING OF THE BEATLES’ WHITE ALBUM, but that has just been replaced by JOHNNY CASH AT FOLSOM PRISON.
Writer Michael Streissguth goes above and beyond, not only focusing on the strained attempts to get the Folsom show recorded when Columbia had no faith in the project to the fears of how the inmates would react in general, but also on the complex history of Folsom Prison itself, to the point to where the stained prison walls actually become a real person in the book.
What Streissguth also does remarkably is wash away some of the legendary veneer the record companies placed on Cash, like how he never truly went to prison, much to the disbelief of many latter-day, newbie fans to Cash’s stage act to get the prisoners on his side. Also, you get intensely interesting side notes, like the story of inmate Glenn Sherley, whose song “Greystone Chapel” was illegally passed to an impressed Cash by a chaplain, and upon release was hired by Cash to work for his company, only to lead to a tragic end.
It’s these little things that make JOHNNY CASH AT FOLSOM PRISON such a great read, so much more than just the typical track-by-track anecdote dissertation. Loaded with gorgeous, black-and-white photos, this is the complete and total story of the one of the greatest albums of all time and a perfect way to orient yourself with another side of the Man in Black, as he was behind the scenes.
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