"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.
"Long Black Veil" is a 1959 country ballad, written by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin and originally recorded by Lefty Frizzell.
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.
Merle Robert Travis was an American country and western singer, songwriter, and guitarist born in Rosewood, Kentucky, United States. His songs' lyrics often discussed both the lives and the economic exploitation of American coal miners. Among his many well-known songs and recordings are "Sixteen Tons", "Re-Enlistment Blues", "I am a Pilgrim" and "Dark as a Dungeon". However, it is his unique guitar style, still called "Travis picking" by guitarists, as well as his interpretations of the rich musical traditions of his native Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, for which he is best known today. Travis picking is a syncopated style of guitar fingerpicking rooted in ragtime music in which alternating chords and bass notes are plucked by the thumb while melodies are simultaneously plucked by the index finger. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1977.
The Sound of Johnny Cash is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, released on June 4, 1962. Among other songs, it contains "In the Jailhouse Now", a Jimmie Rodgers cover which reached #8 on the Country charts, and "Delia's Gone", which Cash would re-record years later, on American Recordings, in 1994. Cash would also go on to record a significantly slower, more ballad-like version of "I'm Free from the Chain Gang Now", which was ultimately released in 2006 on American V: A Hundred Highways as the last track on the album.
"Sixteen Tons" is a song written by Merle Travis about a coal miner, based on life in the mines of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. Travis first recorded the song at the Radio Recorders Studio B in Hollywood, California, on August 8, 1946. Cliffie Stone played bass on the recording. It was first released in July 1947 by Capitol on Travis's album Folk Songs of the Hills. The song became a gold record.
"Ring of Fire" is a song made popular by Johnny Cash when it appeared on his 1963 album Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash. Written by Cash's eventual second wife, June Carter Cash, and Merle Kilgore, it was originally recorded as "(Love's) Ring of Fire" by June's sister, Anita Carter, on her 1963 album Folk Songs Old and New.
"Cocaine Blues" is a Western swing song written by Troy Junius Arnall, a reworking of the traditional song "Little Sadie." Roy Hogsed recorded a well known version of the song in 1947.
Glen Milborn Sherley was an American who became a country singer-songwriter after his song "Greystone Chapel" was made famous by Johnny Cash in 1968. Sherley wrote the song while in prison and it was later performed by Cash at his Folsom Prison performance, which was eventually released as the album At Folsom Prison. Sherley was in the front row, unaware that his song was going to be performed.
"25 Minutes to Go" is a song by Shel Silverstein, from his 1962 album Inside Folk Songs.
"Blue Yodel no. 8, Mule Skinner Blues" is a classic country song written by Jimmie Rodgers. The song was first recorded by Rodgers in 1930 and has been recorded by many artists since then, acquiring the de facto title "Mule Skinner Blues" after Rodgers named it "Blue Yodel #8".
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.
The Johnny Cash Show was an American television music variety show hosted by Johnny Cash. The Screen Gems 58-episode series ran from June 7, 1969, to March 31, 1971, on ABC; it was taped at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. The show reached No. 17 in the Nielsen ratings in 1970.
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 Tennessee Three backing band characterized by train-like chugging guitar rhythms, a rebelliousness coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor, free prison concerts, and a trademark all-black stage wardrobe, which earned him the nickname the "Man in Black".
"Take This Hammer" is a prison, logging, and railroad work song, which has the same Roud number as another song, "Nine Pound Hammer", with which it shares verses. "Swannanoa Tunnel" and "Asheville Junction" are similar. Together, this group of songs are referred to as "hammer songs" or "roll songs". Numerous bluegrass bands and singers like Scott McGill and Mississippi John Hurt also recorded commercial versions of this song, nearly all of them containing verses about the legendary railroad worker, John Henry; and even when they do not, writes folklorist Kip Lornell, "one feels his strong and valorous presence in the song".
Alex Campbell and his Friends is an album by Alex Campbell recorded with Sandy Denny, Johnny Silvo and the Johnny Silvo Folk Group featuring Roger Evans and David Moses, Paul McNeill and Cliff Aungier.
Back Home is a compilation LP consisting of Merle Travis's album, Folk Songs of the Hills (1947), with four previously unreleased tracks. This album marked a new turn in Travis's career, bringing his Kentucky-style fingerpicking and down-home vocal style to the attention of a broad public of country and folk music enthusiasts at the onset of the American folk music revival. Together with another Capitol release the following year, The Merle Travis Guitar, it introduced the style of guitar playing that came to be known, in simplified form, as Travis picking. The album includes traditional country songs such as "John Henry", "Muskrat", "Lost John ", "Barbara Allen", and Travis's signature gospel song, "I Am a Pilgrim". Also included are the original compositions "Dark as a Dungeon" and "Sixteen Tons". All songs are introduced by a spoken narrative.
Folk Songs of the Hills is a 1947 album by American singer Merle Travis. It is a collection of traditional songs from his home of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, including original compositions evoking working life on the railroads and in the coal mines. Each song, accompanied by Travis on his own acoustic guitar, is introduced by a short narrative. Because of these characteristics, the album can be considered an early example of the concept album in popular music, along with Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads and Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours. First issued as a 78 rpm box set album in 1947, this collection has remained in print in LP and CD reissues up to the present, with additional tracks from the same period added in later editions.
"I Need a Lover" is the debut single by John Mellencamp, first released in 1978 under the stage name "Johnny Cougar".
Free Country is an album by the American jazz guitarist and arranger Joel Harrison released in June 2003. It consists of jazz interpretations of country and folk songs. The album contains musical contributions from David Binney, Uri Caine and, as a guest vocalist, Norah Jones. Free Country has received praise from music critics for its success in fusing the jazz and country genres.
