At Folsom Prision

‘At Folsom Prison’ is a live album by American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, released in 1968. Folsom Prison looms large in Johnny Cash’s legacy, providing the setting for perhaps his definitive song and the location for his definitive album, ‘At Folsom Prison’.

The ideal blend of mythmaking and gritty reality, ‘At Folsom Prison’ is the moment when Cash turned into the towering Man in Black, a haunted troubadour singing songs of crime, conflicted conscience, and jail. Surely, this dark outlaw stance wasn’t a contrivance but it was an exaggeration, with Cash creating this image by tailoring his set list to his audience of prisoners, filling up the set with tales of murder and imprisonment — a bid for common ground with the convicts, but also a sly way to suggest that maybe Cash really did shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die. In every sense, it was a breakthrough, but more than that, ‘At Folsom Prison’ is the quintessential Johnny Cash album, the place where his legend burns bright and eternal.