As it turns out, one of the most iconic moments in American music history is the result of a razor blade, a prerecorded hunk of hollering and some Scotch tape.
On “Folsom Prison Blues,” the opening track of Johnny Cash’s landmark live album, “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison,” the Man in Black darkly intones: “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”
The 1,000 inmates packed into the California prison’s cafeteria that Jan. 16, 1968, morning screamed, whistled and wildly applauded the musical murder.For 40 years, music fans have regarded the chilling moment as a key component in the DNA of Cash’s career-making mystique.
But it never happened.
Columbia Records producer Bob Johnston later spliced the crowd response into the song.
Writer Michael Streissguth discovered the bit of larcenous creative license while he was researching his 2004 book, “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece.”
Streissguth was in a studio listening to the master tapes of the concert with Sony Legacy engineers. On the weathered reel-to-reel tape, the moment whizzed past without any audience eruption.
Curious, the writer and the engineers pulled out the edited master. Sure enough, on the final version when Cash’s iconic line was cued up, the spliced in, taped up edit was evident.
“It floored me,” Streissguth recalled. “I had bought into the drama and authenticity of that moment along with everyone else. I didn’t even know if Sony was going to allow me to leave the studio with the information!”
It’s the a
lbum that turned Cash into both a folk hero and a multiplatinum recording artist.
For 40 years, the first thing fans have heard on the “Folsom” album is complete silence until Cash steps to the microphone and says “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.” Thunderous applause then ricochets throughout the room as Cash and crew bang into the opening strains of “Folsom Prison Blues.”
In the new Legacy edition, the album opens with coaching from a radio DJ. Hugh Cherry actually instructs the inmates to remain quiet until after the singer speaks.
“To me, it’s no different than sitting in the Ryman Auditorium at the Grand Ole Opry,” Hemphill said. “They told the audience when to applaud there, too. It’s an old huckster show business trick.”
Yet, there’s one piece of fiction still Scotch-taped to the new version: the canned crowd noise at the pivotal moment on the opening track.
According to Streissguth, Legacy A&R coordinator John Jackson told him: “It’s such an iconic moment, we couldn’t leave it out.”
Even if it never happened.
