Carl Lee Perkins was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. A rockabilly great and pioneer of rock and roll, he began his recording career at the Sun Studio, in Memphis, beginning in 1954. Among his best-known songs are "Blue Suede Shoes", "Honey Don't", "Matchbox" and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby".
"A Boy Named Sue" is a song written by Shel Silverstein and made famous by Johnny Cash. Cash recorded the song live in concert on February 24, 1969, at California's San Quentin State Prison for his At San Quentin album. Cash also performed the song in December 1969 at Madison Square Garden. The live San Quentin version of the song became Cash's biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and his only top ten single there, spending three weeks at No. 2 in 1969, held out of the top spot by "Honky Tonk Women" by The Rolling Stones. The track also topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs and Easy Listening charts that same year and was certified Gold on August 14, 1969, by the RIAA.
"Folsom Prison Blues" is a song by American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash. Written in 1953, it was first recorded and released as a single in 1955, and later included on his debut studio album Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! (1957), as the album's eleventh track. Borrowing liberally from Gordon Jenkins' 1953 song, "Crescent City Blues", the song combines elements from two popular folk styles, the train song and the prison song, both of which Cash continued to use for the rest of his career. It was one of Cash's signature songs. Additionally, this recording was included on the compilation album All Aboard the Blue Train (1962). In June 2014, Rolling Stone ranked it No. 51 on its list of the 100 greatest country songs of all time.
Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison is the first live album by American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, released on Columbia Records on May 6, 1968. After his 1955 song "Folsom Prison Blues", Cash had been interested in recording a performance at a prison. His idea was put on hold until 1967, when personnel changes at Columbia Records put Bob Johnston in charge of producing Cash's material. Cash had recently controlled his drug abuse problems, and was looking to turn his career around after several years of limited commercial success. Backed by June Carter, Carl Perkins, and the Tennessee Three, Cash performed two shows at Folsom State Prison in California on January 13, 1968. The initial release of the album consists of fifteen songs from the first show and two from the second.
The Tennessee Three was the backing band for country and rockabilly singer Johnny Cash for nearly 25 years, providing the unique backing that came to be recognized by fans as "the Johnny Cash sound".
This is a list of notable events in country music that took place in 1969.
Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! is the debut studio album by American singer Johnny Cash, released on October 11, 1957. The album contained four of his hit singles: "I Walk the Line," "Cry! Cry! Cry!," "So Doggone Lonesome," and "Folsom Prison Blues." It was re-issued on July 23, 2002, as an expanded edition, under the label Varèse Vintage, containing five bonus tracks, three being alternate versions of tracks already on the original LP. In 2012, Columbia Records reissued the album with 16 additional non-album Sun Records tracks as part of its 63-disc Johnny Cash: The Complete Columbia Album Collection box set. In 2017, 60 years after the original release, the album was remastered under the title Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! . In 2022, Sun released a remastered edition of the original studio album, with only the original track listing. The songs had been remastered as to simulate being in the studio as the tracks were recorded.
Blood, Sweat and Tears is the fifteenth album by singer Johnny Cash, released on January 7, 1963. It is a collection of songs about the American working man. This includes "The Legend of John Henry's Hammer" and "Busted", the latter of which would become a single. Both would also be performed by Cash during his famous 1968 concerts at Folsom Prison and be included in the 1999 extended reissue of the album, At Folsom Prison. The album was included on the Bear Family Records box set Come Along and Ride This Train.
Johnny Cash at Madison Square Garden is a 1969 recording of a Johnny Cash concert at Madison Square Garden. It was released in 2002.
Robert "Bob" Wootton was an American guitarist. He joined Johnny Cash's backing band, the Tennessee Three, after original lead guitarist Luther Perkins died in a house fire. He remained Cash's guitarist for nearly thirty years.
Johnny Cash Sings the Ballads of the True West is a concept double album and the 22nd overall album released by country singer Johnny Cash, released on Columbia Records in 1965. Covering twenty individual songs, the album, as its title suggests, contains various ballads and other songs on topics related to the history of the American Old West. This includes Carl Perkins' "The Ballad of Boot Hill", "Streets of Laredo", and the sole single from the album, "Mr. Garfield", describing the shock of the population after the assassination of President James Garfield. One of the songs, "25 Minutes to Go", would later be performed at Folsom Prison and appear on Cash's famous At Folsom Prison recording in 1968, while the melody of "Streets of Laredo" would be recycled for the song "The Walls of a Prison" featured on Cash's album From Sea to Shining Sea.
Johnny Cash på Österåker is a live album by country singer Johnny Cash released on Columbia Records in 1973, making it his 43rd overall release. The album features Cash's concert at the Österåker Prison in Sweden held on October 3, 1972. Its counterparts in concept are the more notable At Folsom Prison (1968), At San Quentin (1969), and A Concert Behind Prison Walls (1976). Unlike aforementioned, På Österåker does not contain any of Cash's most well-known songs; it does, however, include a version of Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee". "Orleans Parish Prison" was released as a single, faring rather poorly on the charts. Cash had previously recorded "I Saw a Man" for his 1959 album, Hymns by Johnny Cash.
The Johnny Cash Children's Album is the 49th album by country singer Johnny Cash, released on Columbia Records in 1975 featuring recordings made between January 1972 and October 1973. As the title implies, it contains songs written for children. Among others, this includes "Tiger Whitehead", a song later released in an acoustic version on Cash's posthumous Personal File album in 2006. Most of the songs on the album had not been performed by Cash before. "Old Shep" had been performed by Elvis Presley, among others. One track recorded in 1972 was previously released on LP: "I Got a Boy " was first made available on the 1972 album International Superstar. It is a tongue-in-cheek duet between Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, about their son, John Carter Cash.
John R. Cash was an American country singer-songwriter. Most of Cash's music contains themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially songs from the later stages of his career. He was known for his deep, calm, bass-baritone voice, the distinctive sound of his backing band, The Tennessee Three, that was characterized by its train-like chugging guitar rhythms, a rebelliousness coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor, and his free prison concerts. Cash wore a trademark all-black stage wardrobe, which earned him the nickname as the "Man in Black".
A Concert: Behind Prison Walls is the fifty-fourth overall album and a live album recorded by Johnny Cash at the Tennessee State Prison in 1974. The album features a total of seven performances by Cash with his backing band the Tennessee Three. It also features a total of nine performances by Linda Ronstadt, Roy Clark, and Foster Brooks.
"Daddy Sang Bass" is a song written by Carl Perkins, with lines from the chorus of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?", and recorded by American country music singer Johnny Cash. It was released in November 1968 as the first single from the album The Holy Land. The song was Cash's sixty-first release on the country chart, going on to No. 1 on the Billboard country chart for 6 weeks and spending a total of 19 weeks there. The single reached No. 56 on the Cashbox pop singles chart in 1969. "Daddy Sang Bass" was also released on the Columbia Records Hall of Fame Series as a 45, #13-33153, b/w "Folsom Prison Blues". The record was nominated in the CMA awards category of Single of the Year by the Country Music Association (CMA) in 1969.
Ride This Train is the sixth album by American country singer-songwriter Johnny Cash. It was originally released on August 1, 1960 and was re-issued on March 19, 2002, containing four additional bonus tracks.
The Complete Columbia Album Collection is a box set by country singer Johnny Cash, released posthumously in 2012 on Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings.
"Give My Love to Rose" is a country song by Johnny Cash, recorded at Sun Records in 1957. Cash sang and played it with the Tennessee Two, with Sam Phillips producing. It was released in August 1957 as the B-side of the single "Home of the Blues", which reached No. 5 in the Country & Western Chart. "Give My Love To Rose" reached No. 13 in the same chart.
