I used to ride around listening to Johnny Cash and June Carter, pretending they were my grandparents.
This is the first time I’ve ever admitted that to anyone. It probably sounds insane, but it’s true. The fantasy, I think, was that I was in some way literally raised by music. It was escapism on the hard days, always a spot of comfort. I can vividly remember the golden-hued 41 highway between Tennessee and North Georgia on a Sunday morning, alone in my Taurus, signing along to “If I Were a Carpenter.”
My grandfather—Pap to me, Harlin to everyone else—favored Johnny Cash. He sang like him, too. Maybe that was the seed for my initial fascination. Whatever the reason, I loved Johnny Cash early and immensely. Hours were spent listening to his records, studying his liner notes, learning everything I could. On the advice of Rob Gordon from High Fidelity, I read Johnny Cash’s autobiography Cash.
Walk the Line came out when I was 15, and I was that annoying nerdlinger in the back counting the inaccuracies. I listened to At Folsom Prison as much or more than any punk record in my youth. It’s lost to time now, unfortunately, but at one point I had a homemade recording of my Pap and I singing “I Still Miss Someone” together, me strumming an acoustic guitar and providing a humble harmony while he nailed the baritone.
Unfortunately, I never got to meet Johnny Cash. He passed before I was even old enough to drive, although he was only a state border away. After reading his stories, let alone all the stories from others I admired about meeting him, I couldn’t help but want one of my own. It made me sad that it would never happen.
Then one day, many years later, our timelines crossed in an unexpected way.
…
The Review
Johnny Cash
At Folsom Prison
1968
At Folsom Prison is the most punk rock piece of Americana ever made.
Large swaths of the modern Cash fandom come to us courtesy of the 1990s, Rick Rubin lead revival movement. We commonly refer to this as the American era. Johnny Cash had fallen into shades of anonymity, and the comeback effort successfully reminded the record buying public that he was a living legend deserving of reverence. They also gave him a soft rebrand as a dark, alternative, anti-hero.
What I love so much about At Folsom Prison is that it came from a time when Cash was truly and authentically a dark, alternative, anti-hero. The album was recorded inside the walls of a federal prison, with an audience made up entirely of its inmates, at a time when Johnny Cash himself was only a few years removed from being arrested in El Paso for amphetamine possession. His relationship with June Carter, while soon to be legitimatized in the eyes of the public, was still fodder for taboo tabloid speculation.
The salad days of Sun Studio were long behind him; the British Invasion had seen to that. Elvis would soon be burning out in Vegas; Jerry Lee Lewis had been brought down by his controversial personal life; Roy Orbison hadn’t had a radio hit in years. Cash was still drawing a country crowd, but the rest of the world was turning and passing him by.
At Folsom Prison was a real risk. Studio executives had been trying to talk him out of it for years. The audience Johnny Cash had left were mostly evangelicals, people who probably wouldn’t stand in line to buy a release like that one. A personnel shakeup at Columbia Records left a man named Bob Johnson in charge of decisions like this one, and seeing an opportunity in the chaos, Cash pitched the project one last time and got the green light.
No one had ever made a live album in a prison before. It became such an event that the governor of California, a former actor named Ronald Regan, dropped by the rehearsals to offer his support for the project. Carl Perkins and the Statler Brothers opened the show. It was a full-fledged event. The band performed two sets and selected the best cuts from both to combine into what would become At Folsom Prison as we know it.
Cash’s belief in himself paid off; the record was a smash hit. It went to number one on the country chart, obviously, but it also crept up to number 13 on what would become the Billboard 200. It was a crossover success that went triple platinum and reinvigorated Johnny Cash’s career.
It’s my favorite live album ever made.
I could go on about the tinny, 1960’s radio style quality of the recording that gives the album a sepia-toned hue and transports you right back in time. Perhaps I could write a paragraph discussing the electricity and inherent danger of Cash performing prison songs for active prisoners. Honestly, though, what makes me love At Folsom Prison so much is the amount of fun Johnny Cash is having.
We know Cash as the dower man in black, sacrificing himself to the darkness so that we might learn from him. The lasting final image for many listeners is the elderly “Hurt” video Johnny Cash. What better antithesis than a cheeky Cash shucking, jiving, and making jokes? At one point he even tells the rowdy crowd, “Thank you very much; I’m sorry about that little interruption there, but I just want to tell you that this show is being recorded for an album released on Columbia Records, and you can’t say ‘Hell’ or ‘Shit’ or anything like that … How’s that grab ya, Bob?!”
That clip has been my outgoing voicemail message for 20 years.
If live albums aren’t something you enjoy (even so, I think you would like this one), there are still a few choice selections well worth your time:
“Folsom Prison Blues,” became a number-one hit for good reason. “The Legend of John Henry’s Hammer” might be the finest recording of a storytelling folk song we have. The line, “Now did the lord say that machines oughta take the place of living? What’s a substitute for bread and beans? I ain’t seen it. Do engines get rewarded for their steam?” feels particularly relevant these days. Hearing Cash sing “Cocaine Blues” to those inmates is worth the sticker price by itself.
I had At Folsom Prison blaring through the speakers of my Ford Ranger as I traversed the dirt roads of Arkansas one afternoon in the fall of 2015.
…
The Tale
Dyess, Arkansas is so far off the beaten path that it might as well be invisible.
Justin and I were on the second day of our weeklong drive across America. It was November of 2013, and only a few months before that I had been slinging drinks in a sticky dive bar in downtown Athens, Georgia. I remember the morning I left Georgia, that strange brew of adventure and melancholy. There wasn’t a single firing neuron that was sure I was going to survive in California, but it didn’t matter. Fortune favors the bold.
The first day on the road, we made it as far as Memphis, Tennessee. We had taken scenic route 64, on the advice of my Pap. It was the golden time of year when the leaves are turning orange, and the grass is turning brown. Every barn and tractor we passed during the sunset could have been an illustration hanging on a wall in a southern den.
As we zipped up our jackets outside of a closed Graceland, Justin and I mapped out plans of filming a video at Sun Studio the next morning. I had always wanted to see Sun Studio, a true mecca of rock ‘n’ roll. It was the original home of Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis, which was enough to make it hallowed ground, but what drew me in was that they had taken a chance on a young JR Cash in 1954.
Touring a site of any national historic significance is more or less the same. Even if you don’t know the lyrics of the particular tune they’re singing, you can still hum along. The beats, the cadence, the punctuation, all rehearsed and performed to death, have a strangely familiar comfort. All that changes is the story. In this one, a young radio DJ named Sam Phillips noticed a vacuum in the market and opened a recording studio in the same town where a young man named Elvis Presley was just learning how to sing gospel and wiggle his hips. There’s more nuance to it, obviously, but that’s the meat and potatoes of the situation.
What caught my particular attention was the last room we saw, when our entertaining and knowledgeable tour guide demonstrated how Johnny Cash would fold a dollar bill over his guitar strings to create his signature “boom-chicka-boom” sound. Cash was my hero, and the main attraction of my imagination for the rest of the tour. The son of a dirt farmer crossed a bridge into destiny and became a certified legend. I knew there was even more tangible history a few miles down the road, and I couldn’t resist it.
In the rapidly cooling afternoon air of the truck stop parking lot, guzzling down soda and bags of Doritos, we checked our maps and noticed that Dyess, Arkansas wasn’t too far off the beaten path. In fact, it was barely a detour. We had to pass the bridge into West Memphis, Arkansas anyway—God help us—and Dyess was only 45 minutes further down the road. It wouldn’t be difficult to throw a script together for a short video, and judging by the pictures we found online, the stunning landscapes at magic hour would do most of our work for us anyway.
Finding Dyess on a map wasn’t difficult, but entering the tiny community felt like the measured process of tumbling into Wonderland. Maybe it’s my memory exaggerating everything, but I remember the long farm road into town being almost fortified by small houses of worship and chicken coops. We weren’t sure we had found what we were looking for until we were staring right at it.
Then, there it was—Johnny Cash’s Boyhood Home.
Immediately, I changed into my black button-up shirt and put on my sunglasses. I had packed that shirt specifically for any special occasion that might arise, and what could possibly have been more appropriate than this? As we were setting up our first shots, a man in a pickup truck stopped in the middle of the road to take a picture of the house.
“That’s where he grew up,” he said in awe.
He wasn’t speaking to us, not exactly. It was clear that he was merely bridging the gap between strangers soaking in a moment separately into experiencing it together. We didn’t need to say anything more, just stand for a moment as the flames of the day began to slowly extinguish. He nodded in our direction as he made his departure, and we were alone again.
While Justin gathered B-roll shots and sounds, I stood staring at that old house for a long while. It was in those fields that Cash picked cotton and sang songs from Heavenly Highway Hymns as a child. If the story of the flood was real and not apocryphal, then that had happened here too. Beyond that front door would have been a small transistor radio some 70 years before this moment, where the family would have heard the voice of a young June Carter harmonizing with her sister Anita.
We had come all this way, at least 400 miles from where we started. I knew it was likely I would never travel through Dyess again, so I had a decision to make. Would I film from the road and narrate lore, or would I hop the fence and walk up to the front door? I’m a firm believer in leaving only footprints and taking only memories, being respectful of private property and avoiding general waywardness, but some things in life are worth it.
Drawing a deep breath, I looked quickly in both directions and then closed my eyes. I reasoned that Cash himself would have been OK with this, and if I got caught, surely no one would arrest me for being a fan. Tightening my grip on the top of the fence, I readied myself for a quick scramble and mad dash when, suddenly, I heard a car pull up.
Several official-looking individuals from Arkansas State Heritage Properties emerged from the vehicle and made their way to the gate. One took out a set of keys and unlocked it, swinging it open. A woman from their team approached me, and it was at that moment I knew my goose was truly cooked. Having had my share of run-ins with the law, I knew they would either kindly ask me to move along, or things might swing violently the other way, and we would be a featured story in the next morning’s edition of The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. When I could see the whites of her eyes, I launched into my plea.
When I finished telling her about our travels, my fandom, and our honorable intentions, I waited with bated breath. Justin was still happily filming a stone’s throw away, likely keeping a close eye on the situation. After taking a moment to process the unsolicited information dump ferociously hurled at her, I saw a smile slowly spread across her lips.
“Well,” she asked, “Would you like to come inside?”
There aren’t many moments in the strange saga of a southern gentleman where you feel the need to throw convention to the wind, fall to your blue jean-clad knees and openly weep tears of joy to the spirit in the sky for personally blessing your journey, but this was one of those times. However, I kept my composure and settled instead for readily agreeing and asking myriad burning questions. I remember being particularly taken with the tightness of the house from the inside, and gob smacked when I learned that the original linoleum floors had been preserved by carpeting.
Sometimes something happens and, even in the moment, you feel the burning brand of a core memory forming. It could be holding hands with your third-grade girlfriend at the science museum, picking up a guitar for the first time, or even taking a bite of the perfect piece of pecan pie at Thanksgiving. For me, when things feel their darkest before the dawn, I often put myself back inside of Johnny Cash’s boyhood home, standing where he used to stand by the family radio, staring out of the window next to it as the sun sank below the horizon in Dyess, Arkansas.
As the tour continued, we walked through the inspirational real-life locales of “Five Feet High and Rising” and “Pickin’ Time.” We heard about the ongoing restoration process and how they hoped it would become an historic landmark. All I could think about was how I had managed to step back in time and into the memories of the man in black. Even now, as I write this, I am fully enveloped by the warmth of that moment.
Before I knew it, we had said our goodbyes and sped back down the dirt roads into the deep blue evening. We had barely begun our journey in earnest, and had miles yet to travel before we could rest our bones. Tomorrow would bring the promise of new adventure, and personally, I had a renewed since of confidence.
Johnny Cash had already shown me the way.
…
The Aftermath
After our video came out, a friend of ours told us that it would have made for better content if we had provided some context as to why Johnny Cash mattered. He wasn’t implying that Cash wasn’t important, only that our episode hadn’t explained why they should be as excited as we were about seeing his childhood home. From a structural standpoint, it made sense, and from that point on, whenever we were writing something new, we made a point to give more backstory. We would literally say to one another, “Don’t forget to tell them why Johnny Cash matters.”
Secretly, I was never sure it was necessary.
It’s good advice for writers to be thorough and make sure their readers know why they’re along for the ride, but sometimes something can simply be important because it is. I don’t know why Riff Randell loves the Ramones so much in Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, and I don’t need to; I just accept that she does. I’m not going to tell you why Johnny Cash was important because I’m not a Columbia executive trying to sell records. The only thing I can tell you is why he is important to me.
Johnny Cash made me feel like I had permission to enjoy being a southerner. It isn’t always easy; any pride you have is usually supposed to be tainted with a little shame, but Cash is a reminder of the great parts of our art, history, and culture. I loved that he was able to discuss his beliefs in a respectful way because he personally understood both darkness and redemption. Earlier I mentioned the similarities between Johnny Cash and my Pap, and if I am to continue being honest, I suppose that is what I found most endearing.
Both Cash and my grandfather, Harlin, were born the same year. They had the same deep, rich, bassy singing voice. Neither loved being drafted. They were from a generation of weatherbeaten, hardscrabble southern men who were raised rough but still knew empathy and grace. I’ve looked to them both for inspiration and guidance many times since their passing.
Regular readers know I like to end these proceedings with a moral. I find it therapeutic to look back at these stories with a fresh perspective and offer lessons I’ve learned in the intervening years. I’m sure it can feel like the last few minutes of a sitcom, where the synth music swells and everyone hugs over what they’ve learned. Let it be hokey, if that’s where the vibe leads.
Unlike most of them, though, this story has a proper epilogue.
A few months after the video came out, I got an email inviting me and Justin to the friends and family soft launch of the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home. We were going to see the home finished and fully restored, while meeting members of the Cash family. I couldn’t believe how much luck we had squeezed out of that small piece of good timing.
I said yes immediately, and we waited for the date to be announced. Then, we kept waiting. My follow-up emails went unanswered. The whole thing slowly eroded like a sandcastle during the tide. Who knows what happened. It’s likely someone from the Cash family objected to the idea of sharing the sacred occasion with a couple of tattooed randoms. I’ll never know for sure because we were permanently ghosted. To this day I’ve never heard from them again.
It’s hard to be angry about any of it. I got to walk the boards of Johnny Cash’s boyhood home almost by accident. I believe with my whole heart that, had he been alive and there that day, Cash would have invited me in himself. One must imagine he would have invited me back too, because that’s the kind of man he was.
I had always wanted a Johnny Cash story, and now I have one.
