Episode 006 - Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison

Rainbow Valley

Rainbow Valley is a monthly podcast where your host, Scott takes a look at key events and personalities that shaped one the most influential, vibrant, tumultuous and swinging decades in history. Join us as we celebrate the 1960’s with the stories surrounding the music and news events of the decade that shook the world.

In the early part of the 1960’s, there was a challenge to country music’s Nashville sound. It came like a pincer movement, with the rival Bakersfield sound on one flank and the seemingly unstoppable British invasion on another. The world of country music would be robbed suddenly of the beloved talents that were Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves who would both die in airplane crashes. Nashville’s pop song structure became more distinct with the gradual adaptation in what became known as Countrypolitan music. This would be brought to the forefront by stars such as Glen Campbell, Charlie Rich, Lynn Anderson and Charley Pride and was characterized through the use of lavish string arrangements with a genuine orchestra and occasionally, backing vocals provided by a choir. It was aimed at the middle-of-the-road market and sold well throughout the later 1960s and into the early seventies. The mid sixties would see Johnny cash take a different, more ambitious route releasing concept albums about the American West and the Indian a few years before rock bands would come up with the self-same idea. He would soon conceive of the ultimate concept album and an audacious idea that would propel his career.

When Johnny Cash walked into the gloomy Folsom Prison on January 13th 1968, he had no idea how it would change his life or the course of popular music.

Ladies and gentlemen, Rainbow Valley is proud to present the story of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison.

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Thanks for listening

Scott