Johnny
Cash At San Quentin Quad
LP Vinyl -Quadraphonic Columbia CQ-30961
A Boy Named Sue
Written By The Late Shel Silverstein
See Johnny Read A Hit
When Johnny Cash arrived at San Quentin to make his
second, live, prison concert album, he didn’t even know the words to only song on the
album that would make the chart "A Boy Named Sue" Johnny first heard "A Boy
Named Sue" when the song’s composer Shel Silverstein, sang it during a party at
the Man In Black’s house. Johnny asked Shel to write down the words to the ribald
story song about a young man who grow up rough as nails because his daddy named him Sue.
On the way to San Quentin, Johnny’s wife, June Carter, asked if he had remembered to
bring "Sue" along. Yea but I haven’t had a chance to rehearse it,"he
said" June replied "Take the lyrics, and put it on the music stand and read it
off as you sing it. They’ll love it" Judging from the hooting and hollering by
prisoners caught on the recording, she was right. On Aug.23, 1969, Johnny took
"Sue" to #1. The song also reached #2 on the pop charts, becoming Johnny’s
only gold single and a winner the CMA’s single of the year
The Columbia SQ Quadraphonic, record is a major
advancement in the art of recording. It permits the reproduction of sound from four
separate channels when a special SQ decoder is used. The SQ Quadraphonic system employs a
new double-helical modulation to encode a four-channel master recording so the four tracks
can be carried in a stereo format on a disc. The disc when played back through an SQ
Quadraphonic decoder, will display the original four channels through the four speakers in
the listening area. The all around-you presence of around coupled with the ability to move
elements of the program between any pair of speakers allows the utmost flexibility to
artist, composers, and arrangers, and is passed on to the listener as a totally new
experience
San Quentin
Jim
Marshall Famous Picture
Photographer Jim Marshall
Remembers The Flip Side Of Johnny Cash
For
Johnny Cash, whose latest anthology is titled Love, God, Murder the path
of righteousness isn’t far removed from the path of the outlaw. On the
night of February 24, 1969, as Cash and his band prepared to perform for
the imamates of San Quentin prison, photographer Jim Marshall saw the two
trajectories inter sect and caught it on film. Although he never did time,
Cash knew from his troubles with drug addiction and the law how it felt to
be held by the collar. Since 1957, he had taken his gospel-punk revival to the country’s worst hellholes – Huntsville, Folsom,
and San Quentin – preaching from his redemptive song book to
professional things and unrepentant lifer alike. The 1969 visit to San
Quentin was Cash’s fourth, but he was still moved by the prison
chokehold on men’s soul. “John had a real feeling for guy’s,” says
Marshall, a veteran of those shows. “Prison had broken them, and it just
pissed him off.” Inside San Quentin’s mess hall, tensions hung in the
air as the band set up on the makeshift stage. Recalls Marshall, “I said
something like, “hey Johnny, lets do a shot for the warden. And he just
cut loose and flipped the bird. Old tales often have different telling. In
Cash’s version, the recipient of his gesture was a TV crew on hand to
film the show; “I yelled, “Clear the stage! Can’t see my audience”
Nobody moved so I gave them the bird.”
Roll
ahead 20 years. It’s March 1998, and Cash is spitting mad because
country radio won’t play his latest album, a stroke of Grammy-winning
alt-rock genius called “Unchained” Together with his record label he
takes out a full page add in Billboard consisting of Marshall’s photo
and a terse salutation “American Recordings” and Johnny Cash would
like to acknowledge the Nashville music establishment and country radio
for your support. “This time, his target is indisputable.
Since the early sixties, Jim Marshall has
photographed some of popular music greatest legends including the Beatles,
Bob Dylan, and Miles Davis. Selections of his work have been collected in
the books “Not Fade away” and Early Dylan. Original, museum-quality
prints of his work including this legendary photo of Johnny Cash are
available from www.marshallphoto.com
or call Marshall directly 415-8643622
Links To Words of Other Songs
Home Of The
Blues
Big River
I walk The
Line
I Still
Miss Someone
Revised: September 02, 2007 |
