How Johnny Cash’s prison concert turned an inmate into the world’s biggest country star
Country music has always seemed to follow similar themes within its songwriting. If you were to look over the figures who have popularised the genre over the past century, you would find that most have covered topics of pick-up trucks, alcohol, and American football. However, one theme that seems to have dominated the field of country music since its very inception is criminality. The woes of criminals and prisoners have provided inspiration to country artists for decades, particularly in the case of Johnny Cash.
Rising to prominence during the 1950s, Cash was unlike any country artist that had preceded him, characterised by his strong image, distinctive baritone voice, and deeply personal songwriting. Pretty early on in his career, though, the songwriter developed a reputation for amphetamine addiction, which inevitably caused him a few problems with the law. Although Cash was never served a prison sentence, he did spend more than a few nights in local jails for a variety of misdemeanour crimes – the vast majority of them drug-related.
This legal trouble gave rise to Cash’s outlaw image, which he regularly played to his advantage. Dressing in all black and denouncing the law, the country star was the rebellious poster boy of this new generation of country music. His adoption of the outlaw image was not entirely self-serving, however, and the songwriter spent a considerable portion of his career advocating for prison reform and supporting prisoners across the nation.
Most famously, Cash would regularly tour around prisons in America, performing for the inmates. The most notable of these performances occurred at San Quentin prison in California, where Cash would eventually come to record the seminal live album Johnny Cash At San Quentin. However, he had been playing for inmates at the prison for years prior, including one particularly important gig on January 1st, 1960. Cash put on a stunning performance for the inmates, paving the way for many audience members to take up music themselves.
One of the crowd members at San Quentin that fateful day was Merle Haggard. The California local had been plagued by legal trouble throughout his adolescence, moving from juvenile detention centres to county jails and, eventually, San Quentin. Haggard was incarcerated in San Quentin for trying to escape from Bakersfield Jail, where he was being held for robbing a local roadhouse. Although Haggard had taught himself to play the guitar at a young age, music never seemed an obvious path for him to take until he witnessed ‘The Man in Black’.
Recalling the moment he was Cash onstage, Haggard later told ASX TV, “Well, first of all, country music was not like it is now. Country music was down your nose at that time compared to what it is now. So the visit of Johnny Cash was not all that cool in the joint.”
The country legend went on to explain, “Before he started his show, he asked for a glass of water and pointed at one of the guards, and this guard was standing in the daylight chewing gum. And Cash, when he asked for the water, of course, he had everyone in the audience looking at him. And he mocked that guard. Well, he won the whole audience.”
Following Cash’s performance at San Quentin, Haggard was inspired to make the executive decision to turn his life around. Upon his release from prison in 1960, the guitarist set about following in Cash’s footsteps, leaving behind his life of crime and focusing instead on mastering the style of country music. Of course, Haggard went on to become one of country’s biggest stars, inspiring countless future artists to explore the genre on their own. Hence, we have more to thank Johnny Cash for than originally thought.
