Marketing and Music : Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison

Let’s go to jail with the Man in Black

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Welcome to November’s edition of Marketing and Music. Once a month, I take a look at how one musical artist connects or has connected with their fans, and the marketing lessons you can learn. This month’s issue will focus on one of the most iconic live performances of all time: Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison in 1968. Please hit Like and Restack this issue to help it get more visibility on Substack. Thank you!

This performance was almost two decades in the making. Let’s back up and look at all the events on Johnny Cash’s career that led him to Folsom Prison in 1968.

Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash

In the 1950s, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash were arguably the two most popular rock stars in the world. Cash’s rough and gritty songwriting style immediately won him fans the world over.

Somewhat surprisingly, Cash’s gritty song style earned him a unique fanbase: Prison inmates. Although Cash never served hard time (He was arrested several times on minor offenses, including once he was arrested in Starkville, Mississippi for picking flowers), inmates believed he was a hardened criminal just as many of them were.

Many of Johnny's songs spoke about life inside prisons in a way that inmates could relate to. A great example of this is the short song The Wall, this version was performed at Folsom Prison during the 1968 concert:

Johnny, to his credit, never shied away from having the support of inmates. He just viewed them as regular fans, who just happened to live in a jail. Johnny even began performing concerts at prisons around the country in the mid 1950s, and would continue doing so for the remainder of his career. As you might guess, these concerts only galvanized his support among inmates across the country.

It was a common refrain in the 1950s, everyone loved Johnny Cash. Unfortunately, Johnny soon began to fall under the influence of drugs as he struggled to keep up with the grueling travel schedule that blossoming rock stars often took on as their careers begin to take off. By the early 1960s, his struggles with pills were becoming completely disruptive to not only his marriage and home life, but to his musical career as well.

"I was taking the pills for awhile, and then the pills started taking me."

In 1960, his prolific streak of hits on the country chart began to show signs of slowing. By the early 1960s his drug use began to negatively impact his career, as he more frequently had to cancel shows due to not being able to perform. In 1966, he divorced his first wife, and his drug use continued to worsen. Finally in 1967, June Carter moved in with him to help Johnny beat his addiction to drugs. This move helped Johnny finally beat his addiction and by the end of the year he was sober and ready to restart his career.

But time had not been kind to Cash. Not only had he fallen out of the public eye by 1967 due to an erratic recording and touring schedule in previous years, but at the same time, popular music styles had changed. Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Hank Williams were no longer the artists that fans clamored to hear. By 1967, artists such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix were more popular. Musical styles had changed, and Johnny had been left behind.

So clean and sober, and ready to restart his career, Johnny had some serious decisions to make right out of the gate. Namely, his next album must be successful. If Cash came out of semi-retirement and released a bad album, his career was effectively over. And Cash understood this.

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So with his career literally hanging in the balance, Johnny did the only sensible thing: He decided that his comeback album would be recorded in a prison. Johnny had always toyed with the idea of recording an album in a prison, and he decided this was the time to do it. He told his management and label that he wanted to record a concert at a prison and they had an immediate reaction:

Absolutely not!

Both his management and label tried to talk Johnny out of recording at a prison, as the risks were obvious to them. But Johnny would not be deterred. He had a hunch that the inmates would deliver a level of energy and excitement that a normal crowd simply could not match. And it was a hunch he was willing to bet his career on.

Johnny reached out to two prisons he had performed at before about his idea: Folsom and San Quentin prisons, both in California. Folsom Prison replied first and accepted the idea. A week later, San Quentin answered and accepted as well.

So on January 13th, 1968, Johnny Cash would perform two concerts for the inmates at Folsom Prison. The music recorded from those two shows would then become the first live album recorded at a prison. By any artist.

"Hello...I'm Johnny Cash!"

It's January 13th, 1968. Johnny Cash is standing just outside the prison cafeteria at Folsom Prison, where hundreds of prisoners are waiting patiently for Johnny to begin performing. Cash is listening to the warden giving the prisoners final instructions before the show begins.

And he’s seething.

The warden is carefully explaining to the prisoners how they will be expected to behave. They are being reminded that this performance will be recorded. As such, the prisoners are told they are expected to behave themselves, no loud or raucous applause, and absolutely no profanity whatsoever!

Johnny is listening to this, and his blood is boiling, for a couple of reasons. First, the warden is instructing the prisoners to temper their enthusiasm, which is exactly what Johnny did NOT want! He wanted the energy and excitement from the crowd, he wanted to feed off their passion.

Perhaps more importantly, Johnny couldn’t stand how the warden was talking down to the prisoners as if they were children who had to be told how to behave properly.

So a few minutes later, after all the proper preparations were made, Johnny Cash walked out into the cafeteria and approached the microphone, as the inmates in attendance politely looked ahead, not making a sound.

Cash leaned to the microphone and announced “Hello…I’m Johnny Cash!”

Polite and very muted applause from the audience.

Cash then proceeds to remind the inmates that they will be recording today, and he reminds the inmates that the warden told them not to engage in any profanity. Johnny adds “So that means don’t say HELL, DAMN or SHIT because remember WE’RE RECORDING TODAY!”

The inmates erupt in applause. Now the warden is the one seething. This lit the fuse for the audience and communicated to the inmates that they and Johnny were about to have a good time.

And they did. The audience’s wild enthusiasm for the concert simply spurred Johnny and his band to give an even better performance. The louder the inmates cheered, the more Johnny gave them something to cheer about.

Johnny’s gamble had paid off, he got the exact reaction and environment in that cafeteria that he was hoping for. At Folsom Prison was a wild commercial success for Cash. Cash’s next 8 singles all peaked in the Top 4 on the country charts, and five of them went to #1. At Folsom Prison sold over 3 million copies, and by the end of the decade, Cash was outselling The Beatles. One fateful concert in one prison cafeteria revitalized and extended Cash’s musical career for another 40 years.

Cash could have easily listened to his label and management, and recorded an album in a studio that clearly wouldn’t have had the passion and intensity that was captured in that iconic Folsom Prison concert. But instead, Cash took the ‘risky’ move, and embraced his most passionate fans. Because Cash was smart enough to understand that embracing his most passionate fans WAS the smart move. Even if he had to go jail to do it.

“I was in the audience, Johnny”

As I mentioned earlier, Cash began performing in prisons in the late 1950s. On Jan 1st, 1959, he performed at San Quentin Prison. A young inmate in the audience was so enamored with his performance that he decided that day to clean up his life and become a musician just like Johnny.

And he did. Over the next 50 years, this inmate would go on to record over 600 songs, putting over 100 of them on the Billboard charts, including 9 straight #1 songs on the Country Music charts. He would also sell over 6 million albums in his career, and die with a net worth of over five million.

His name? Merle Haggard.

Over a decade after that fateful San Quentin concert, Haggard performed with Cash on The Johnny Cash Show, and in between songs, Cash mentioned performing in prisons, and specifically mentioned performing at San Quentin. Which led to this on-air exchange:

“The first time I ever saw you perform, it was at San Quentin,” Haggard said, to which Cash replied: “I don’t remember you being in that show, Merle.”

“I was in the audience, Johnny,” Haggard said.

Think about the impact of one choice. In the late 1950s, Johnny Cash made a choice to start playing concerts in prisons. Because of that one choice, he created a passionate fanbase that would help him save his career in 1968 and extend it for another 40 years. Because of that same choice, he helped launch the career of Merle Haggard.

So because one artist decided to embrace his fans, even if he had to go to jail to do it, the musical career of Johnny Cash was saved, and the musical career of Merle Haggard was made.

The lesson? When you have a chance to completely embrace your most passionate customers and fans, ALWAYS take it.

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I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Mack