“San Quentin, I hate every inch of you. You’ve cut me and you’ve scarred me through and through”
When Johnny Cash recorded Johnny Cash At San Quentin in 1969, it marked the high point of his popularity. A follow-up to his hugely successful Folsom Prison recordings the year before, San Quentin showed Cash at his roughhouse best — full of brash bravado and giving the average American a glimpse at a side that showed him to be more kindred to those in the audience that evening than to Nashville or the hippie rock scene that was grinding to an inevitable halt. But 1969 was a year that saw a country ready for such attitude. A prison record seemed to go hand-in-hand with the events that unfolded later that year: Four people died at the Altamont festival in San Francisco in what was supposed to be a smaller, West coast version of Woodstock, and opposition to the Vietnam War reached its peak. It was rowdy year that foretold the end of a psychedelic “love” era that was spinning out of control and burning out. Johnny Cash – with his own demons at his heels – was a mirror of the times.
Continue reading ‘Johnny Cash At San Quentin: Legacy Edition’
