Mind the Soap - Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison

'Hello. I'm Johnny Cash...'

It might not be the wittiest opening line, but it's hard to imagine 'Hello, I'm Mick Hucknall' having the same impact. Similarly there are few live albums possessing such an electrifying ambience. Recorded within the forbidding walls of a maximum security jail housing some of California's most notorious criminals, Live At Folsom Prison may well be Cash's finest moment.

Cash was no stranger to the insides of a cell, mainly for public order and drugs offences. He'd also played inside prisons before - Merle Haggard tells of seeing Cash play in San Quentin when he was an inmate himself - but this would be the first time his performance was captured on tape.

By the late sixties Cash's career was in dire need of a boost. The hits had dried up. His hard living had effectively blackballed him with the Nashville country establishment. It took marriage to June Carter in 1968 to put him back on the straight and narrow. At Folsom Prison was intended to bring Cash back into the public eye, but it wasn't a compromise.

The stripped down rockabilly of the Tennessee Three was a long way from the prevailing trends of the moment in country, and provided the perfect framework for the tales of prisons, cocaine, bad women and worse whiskey. It's still slightly chilling when Cash gets his biggest cheer for the line in Folsom Prison Blues about shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die - you can imagine many of the audience having done just that.

At Folsom Prison was released to widespread acclaim, giving Cash his biggest hit to date. Its outlaw appeal enabled his first major crossover into the mainstream. Coming just as many American rock acts, in particular The Byrds, were rediscovering and reinventing country music, it won him a new audience as well as adding to the iconic status he still enjoys today. A guest appearance on Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline album soon followed, with Cash returning the compliment by inviting Dylan to appear on his television show. A follow up album was recorded at San Quentin prison, but Live at Folsom Prison remains the better, more focussed, set.