Bottom Line:
This isn't the first time that Johnny Cash's record-breaking, classic 1969 concert has been released on CD - it's also not the first time it's been re-mastered and expanded. But THIS time, for the first time, they've released the ENTIRE concert, with the entire cast (including Carl Perkins, the Statlers, and the Carter Family), expanding it to two full CDs as well as including a DVD which features the UK documentary on the making of the original album, including footage of the original concert. It's a box set classic to end all box sets, and a great addition to any Johnny Cash collection.
There probably aren't too many Johnny Cash fans who don't already have this concert - at least,
the abridged version - in their collections. Many may even have copies of the UK television
documentary, Johnny Cash in San Quentin. But now, for the first time, we get not only the
complete concert - from beginning to end, with the entire "Johnny Cash Show" in attendance -
but also the hour-long documentary, which features footage from the show as well as numerous
one-on-one interviews with several prison guards and inmates, all together in one totally
awesome boxed set that includes not only the complete concert on two CDs (including, for the
first time ever, all the opening act music, which includes Carl Perkins performing his classic
"Blue Suede Shoes", the Statlers doing "Flowers on the Wall", and the Carter
Family performing both "The Last Thing On My Mind" and "Wildwood Flower,"
with June addressing the audience between songs. There's now a full 31 tracks to the concert,
including both versions of the rabble-rousing "San Quentin," more from Perkins, the
Statlers, and the Carters, and more previously unreleased gems from Cash himself, including
"Blistered," "The Long Black Veil/Give My Love to Rose" medley, and "Orange
Blossom Special." (And, of course, the first performance ever of "A Boy Named
Sue.") Every gritty, hard-bitten moment is included, and you can hear the fire Cash started
beneath the prisoners, who may not have been fans before the concert started, but sure were by
the end.
In addition to the new tracks, the box set comes with a full-color booklet (a requirement for box
sets, right?), which has a bunch of great pictures (including the famous shot of Cash taken
backstage, flipping the bird at the camera), several sharp articles, and all the liner notes from the
July 2000 expanded edition release, which featured an article from Marty Stuart, and there's an
interview Marty does with Merle Haggard. (What does Merle Haggard have to do with a Johnny
Cash concert? Famous story - Merle was an inmate at San Quentin himself back in '58, when
Johnny performed his first concert there, a full decade before this recording was made. Merle
and Cash met some years later and remained friends until the end of Cash's life. Cash's
autobiography recounts a story of when Merle came to visit him in the hospital in 1999 and told
him "You're gonna be all right, Cash." This story is told again in these pages, in Johnny's own
words.) There's a lovely article from June Carter, written in 2000, and from Lou Robin. The
original cast and crew included, of course, the entire Johnny Cash show, the Tennessee Three,
and the entire captive (in every sense of the word) audience at San Quentin. The new edition
was thoroughly and lovingly reassembled, aiming for pure historical accuracy, by the folks at
Legacy, headed by producer Bob Irwin. This time around, nothing has been left out, nothing left
to the imagination, and we get to hear all of Cash's empathic words (both spiritual and purely
physical) to the imprisoned.
It is perfectly true that Johnny Cash was never in prison himself (he said as much in a later song,
"I'll Say It's True"). He did spend more than a few nights in jail, but never more than one
night at a time. His record included the usual drug busts and for starting a forest fire, yet Cash
was always able to capture the hearts of those he sang to, whether he actually shared their
experiences or not, simply by virtue of being able to see into the hearts and souls of those he saw
in his life, from prisoners to Native Americans (he was also not Indian-blooded, as he had
believed when he was younger). Cash wrote and sang songs from his own heart and in doing so,
managed to touch the hearts of those who listened to him. He's still doing it now, three years
after his death. More of these special editions will come out as they find more recordings he left
us that we haven't heard yet, and I'm sure they, too, will touch the heart - because that's what
Cash did and could always do. The Legacy Edition of Johnny Cash at San Quentin is
worthy of Cash's legacy, in music as well as politics. Cash was a beacon of liberal human rights
issues in a business and genre largely dominated by hawkish conservatism; his advocacy of
prisoners' rights brought him to the prisons to entertain the men there, and his stand made him a
legion of loyal fans both in and outside of the prison walls. At San Quentin wasn't the first
time Cash played within those notorious walls, but it was certainly a definitive performance, one
that has been captured in all its glory for all time.
Song List:
- Carl Perkins: Blue Suede Shoes *
- The Statler Brothers: Flowers on the Wall *
- The Carter Family: The Last Thing On My Mind *
- June Carter Cash talks to the Audience *
- Wildwood Flower *
- Johnny Cash: Big River
- I Still Miss Someone
- Wreck of the Old 97
- I Walk the Line
- Medley: The Long Black Veil/Give My Love To Rose *
- Folsom Prison Blues
- Orange Blossom Special *
- Johnny Cash & June Carter: Jackson *
- Darlin' Companion
- The Carter Family: Break My Mind *
- Johnny Cash: I Don't Know Where I'm Bound
- Starkville City Jail
- San Quentin
- San Quentin
- Wanted Man
- Carl Perkins: Restless *
- Johnny Cash: A Boy Named Sue
- Blistered *
- (There's Be) Peace In the Valley
- Carl Perkins: The Outside Looking In *
- The Statler Brothers: Less of Me *
- Johnny Cash with the Carter Family: Ring of Fire
- Johnny Cash, the Carter Family, the Statler Brothers, and Carl Perkins: He Turned the Water Into Wine
- Daddy Sang Bass
- The Old Account Was Settled Long Ago
- Closing Medley: Folsom Prison Blues/I Walk The Line/Ring of Fire/The Rebel - Johnny Yuma
* previously unreleased
