Along with his future wife and collaborator June Carter and band The Tennessee Three, Johnny plays through 19 songs, of which 5 were originally written by Cash, with the rest being covers and songs written for him.
It was Johnny's idea to play a show inside prison walls after writing his song 'Folsom Prison Blues' in 1955 - the track that aptly kicks off the album.
The idea was delayed however, as those in charge of Johnny's material at Columbia Records didn't see fit to put a drug addled Cash in front of a rowdy convict audience.
With a cleaning up of his act in 1968 and a desire to reach commercial success, the Man In Black was taken to play a show to hundreds of inmates inside the dining hall of California's Folsom Prison.
This one off event included two shows in one day on January 13th, 1968. The live tape recording immediately achieved commercial success in the U.S - reaching the number one spot in the country music chart, and getting as high as 15th in the national album standings.
This was an unprecedented turn-around for Cash, having previously been shunned by just about everyone in the music industry for his unpredictability, drug abuse, and inability to keep up with the evolving industry; as new, fresh acts placed Johnny's gospel themed, country-blues into the past.
So what makes this thing a PERFECT album?
For me, it is a perfect storm of all the mitigating circumstances and speculation that surrounded Cash at the time that raises the profile of this record into legendary status. He had to prove his relevance in the cut-throat music industry, and he pulled through with a killer live performance brimming with emotion, wit and ripe technical ability.
Cash didn't bend over backwards to incorporate himself into the evolving scene, instead he took advantage of his branding as a rock and roll outlaw by reaching out to his fellow societal outcasts and allowing them to witness his revival.
Johnny sets out to please and let the inmates know he is on their side with every song on this calculated set-list, right from his token introduction "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash" he has the audience howling with praise and laughter through tracks like 'Cocaine Blues' that incorporate comedy to the act, with lyrical punchlines of dark proportions such as Johnny's brag: "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die".
The inmates adds to the comedy with shouts and cheers as the prisoners relate to the tales of criminality.
It's the tightrope that Cash walks between comedy and sincerity that showcases his charm and his audience awareness on this record. As well as hanging onto every word of Johnny's lone voice in ballads of death penalties and life sentences: 'Send A Picture of Mother' and my personal favourite 'Give My Love To Rose', the crowd stamps their feet along to '25 Minutes To Go', a rib-tickling countdown to a man's hanging.
Johnny dresses his songs with sounds and storytelling that transport his audience away from the prison walls, be it with laughter ('Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart'), or with makeshift sounds of train tracks and whistles ('Orange Blossom Special') as well as pastoral songs of freedom ('Green, Green Grass of Home').
This album would come with me onto my desert island without a doubt, I wouldn't place it in a top 10 list, but at the same time I wouldn't like to live without it. Whilst it exhibits fantastic song-writing and that is usually the key to a successful record, it takes a back seat as Johnny Cash sets the bar for what live music is all about.
tl;dr
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