Johnny Cash at San Quentin is the 31st overall album and second live album by American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, recorded live at San Quentin State Prison on February 24, 1969, and released on June 16 of that same year. The concert was filmed by Granada Television, produced and directed by Michael Darlow. The album was the second in Cash's conceptual series of live prison albums that also included At Folsom Prison (1968), På Österåker (1973), and A Concert Behind Prison Walls (1976).

The album was certified gold on August 12, 1969, platinum and double platinum on November 21, 1986, and triple platinum on March 27, 2003, by the RIAA. The album was nominated for a number of Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and won Best Male Country Vocal Performance for "A Boy Named Sue."

There have been several releases with different songs and set order. The album cover photo by Jim Marshall is considered to be an iconic image of Cash, with Marshall Grant's Epiphone Newport bass guitar famously silhouetted in the foreground.

Recording
Johnny Cash had previously recorded a concert at a prison in 1968 at Folsom State Prison. This concert was recorded for a live LP and a television documentary for the UK. On the original LP release, the song order was changed and several songs were cut, presumably for space reasons. Despite the timing limitations of the vinyl LP format, however, both performances of the song "San Quentin" (Cash agreed to perform an encore at the audience's request) are included on the original album. Early CDs that feature this and At Folsom Prison on the same disc, however, contain only the second version due to time constraints. Some of the songs were censored. Despite the title of the version released on CD in 2000 – At San Quentin (The Complete 1969 Concert) – the CD does not contain the entire concert uncut, but does feature additional tracks and running order that parallels the actual setlist. Performed but not included were the songs "Jackson" and "Orange Blossom Special", which are included in the video release of the show (both songs had been included in At Folsom Prison).  Two songs were somehow slowed down by half a step ("Starkville City Jail" and "Blistered"), possibly due to using another tape machine while the tape on the original machine was changed.

This was Cash's first album recorded without his longtime lead guitar player and Tennessee Two founder Luther Perkins, who had died several months earlier. On the album, Cash is heard paying tribute to Perkins (who was not related to Carl Perkins, who appears on the recording as lead guitarist on several tracks).

Two songs are performed live on stage for the first time during the show: "San Quentin" and "A Boy Named Sue". According to biographer Robert Hilburn, the decision had already been made for Cash to perform "San Quentin" twice as it was considered the major new song of the set, though on record Cash makes it appear as if the encore is due to audience demand; producer Bob Johnson ultimately chose to include both versions of the song on the album. According to Hilburn, Cash spontaneously decided to perform "A Boy Named Sue" during the show and neither the TV crew nor his band knew he planned to do it (though he gave them advance warning by announcing early in the show his intent to play it); he used a lyric sheet on stage while the band improvised the backing.

TV special and middle finger photo
A crew from Granada Television in the UK filmed the concert for broadcast on television. In the extended version of the concert released by Columbia/Legacy in 2000, Cash is heard expressing frustration at being told what to sing and where to stand prior to his performance of "I Walk the Line". The famous image of an angry-looking Cash giving the middle finger gesture to a camera originates from the performance; in his liner notes for the 2000 reissue, Cash explains that he was frustrated at having Granada's film crew blocking his view of the audience. When the crew ignored his request to "clear the stage", he made the gesture.

Reception

Reviewing for The Village Voice in 1969, Robert Christgau said of the album, "Much inferior to Folsom Prison and Greatest Hits, which is where to start if you're just getting into Cash. Contains only nine songs, one of which is performed twice. Another was written by Bob Dylan." Rolling Stone magazine's Phil Marsh wrote, "Cash sounds very tired on this record ('ol' Johnny does best under pressure,' he says), his voice on some songs just straying off pitch. But the feeling that actual human communication is taking place more than compensates for this. Communicating to an audience at the time is becoming a lost art because of the ascension of recorded music as the music of this culture."

The album was nominated for a number of Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and won Best Male Country Vocal Performance for "A Boy Named Sue".

Reviewing the 2000 Columbia/Legacy reissue, Blender magazine's Phil Sutcliffe said, "Cash, just 25 , sings as old as the hills — and looks oddly Volcanic. Prisoners 'have their hearts torn out,' Cash reckoned. It sounds as if he did too, wild-eyed and shuddering at the oppression of the walls. The crowd is a 1,000-strong caged animal. The reissue, with nine extra tracks, surpasses the vinyl original."

Track listing

Original release

2000 CD reissue

Notes

Has no author-credit. Apparently David G. George did not win a lawsuit against RCA-Victor in 1933 over the copyrights for this song.

It is worth noting, however, that it seems to be widely accepted that Henry Whitter wrote the music, as "The Ship That Never Returned"; Fred Lewey wrote the original words, and Charles Noell wrote the original two additional verses.

2006 Legacy edition

Disc three (DVD)

The original 1969 documentary produced by Granada TV in the U.K. chronicles Cash's historic concert at the maximum security prison. Includes footage of the concert that became the 1969 best-selling LP, and features an edited performance of the number 1 hit "A Boy Named Sue". Also contains one-on-one interviews with several of the prison guards and inmates, talking about their time and experiences behind bars. (Running time: approx. 60 minutes)

Several tracks on the original LP are preceded by several minutes of Cash talking to the audience, including a tangent where Cash is recorded trying to get his guitar tuned on stage. The original LP release bleeps profanity, including on "A Boy Named Sue" but later issues including the Legacy edition are uncensored. The original album's closing track "Folsom Prison Blues" is a partial performance of the song edited from a longer medley available in complete form in later reissues.

Personnel
Johnny Cash – vocals, rhythm guitar, harmonica
June Carter Cash – vocals
Carter Family – vocals, autoharp, acoustic guitar
Marshall Grant – bass guitar
W.S. Holland – drums
Carl Perkins – rhythm guitar, lead guitar, vocals
Bob Wootton – lead guitar
The Statler Brothers – vocals

Charts
Album – Billboard (United States)

Certifications and sales

References

External links

 At San Quentin (2000 CD release) (Adobe Flash) at Radio3Net (streamed copy where licensed)
 Sony/Columbia/Legacy Johnny Cash At San Quentin liner notes legacyrecordings.com.
 At San Quentin – Legacy Edition
 Daniel Geary, "'The Way I Would Feel About San Quentin': Johnny Cash and the Politics of Country Music," Daedalus, 142 (Fall 2013), 64-72.  http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/DAED_a_00234

1969 live albums
2008 video albums
Albums produced by Bob Johnston
Johnny Cash live albums
Columbia Records live albums
Columbia Records video albums
Live video albums
Prison music
San Quentin State Prison
《At San Quentin》은 미국의 싱어송라이터 조니 캐시의 서른한 번째 전체 음반으로, 1969년 2월 24일 샌 퀜틴 주립 교도소에서 라이브로 녹음되어 같은 해 6월 16일에 발매되었다. 이 콘서트는 그라나다 텔레비전에 의해 촬영되었고 마이클 달로가 제작하고 감독했다. 이 음반은 캐시의 라이브 교도소 컨셉트 시리즈 중 두 번째 음반으로, 또한 《At Folsom Prison》 (1968년), 《På Österåker》 (1973년), 그리고 《A Concert Behind Prison Walls》 (1976년)를 포함한다.

이 음반은 1969년 8월 12일 골드, 1986년 11월 21일 플래티넘과 더블 플래티넘, 2003년 3월 27일 미국 음반 산업 협회에 의해 트리플 플래티넘 인증을 받았다. 이 음반은 올해의 음반을 포함한 많은 그래미 어워드 후보에 올랐고 〈A Boy Named Sue〉로 최우수 남성 컨트리 보컬상을 수상했다.

다른 노래와 순서를 가진 몇 개의 음반이 있었다. 짐 마샬의 음반 커버 사진은 마셜 그랜트의 에피폰 뉴포트 베이스 기타가 전경에 실루엣으로 잘 나타나 있는 등 캐시의 상징적인 이미지로 여겨진다.

녹음 
조니 캐시는 이전에 1968년 폴섬 주립 교도소에서 열린 콘서트를 녹음했었다. 이 콘서트는 영국을 위해 라이브 음반과 텔레비전 다큐멘터리로 녹음되었다. 오리지널 LP 발매 때, 곡 순서가 바뀌었고 아마도 공간적인 이유로 몇몇 곡들이 잘려나갔다. 하지만 LP판에는 시기적 제약이 있지만 두 곡 모두 샌 퀜틴(관객의 요청에 따라 앙코르를 하기로 합의한 캐시)의 연주가 담겨 있다. 어떤 노래들은 검열을 받았다. 2000년에 CD로 발매된 《At San Quentin (The Complete 1969 Concert)》의 타이틀에도 불구하고, 이 CD는 콘서트 전체를 편집하지 않은 상태로 포함하지 않고, 실제 세트리스트와 유사한 추가 트랙과 실행 순서를 특징으로 한다. 2010년, 이 음반은 선데이즈드 레코드에 의해 컬럼비아 오리지널 카탈로그 번호 LP 5362로 바이닐로 재발매되었다. 재발행된 선데이즈드 바이닐은 뒷면 커버에 바코드가 있고 선데이즈드 이슈임을 나타내는 것을 제외하고 오리지널 음반의 정확한 사본이다. 공연되었지만 수록되지 않은 곡들로는 〈Jackson〉과 〈Orange Blossom Special〉이 있다. 두 곡이 절반 정도 느려졌는데 (〈Starkville City Jail〉과 〈Blistered〉) 아마도 원래 기계의 테이프가 바뀌는 동안 다른 테이프 머신을 사용했기 때문일 것이다.

이것은 캐시의 오랜 리드 기타리스트와 몇 달 전에 사망한 테네시 투 설립자 루터 퍼킨스 없이 녹음된 첫 번째 음반이었다. 음반에서 캐시는 퍼킨스(여러 트랙에서 리드 기타리스트로 레코딩에 등장하는 칼 퍼킨스와는 관련이 없었다)에게 경의를 표하는 것으로 알려졌다.

〈San Quentin〉과 〈A Boy Named Sue〉이라는 두 곡이 공연 중 처음으로 무대에서 라이브로 공연된다. 전기 작가 로버트 힐번에 따르면, 비록 레코드에서 캐시가 앙코르를 청중의 요구에 의한 것처럼 보이기는 하지만 캐시가 〈San Quentin〉을 두 번 공연하기로 이미 결정했다고 한다. 힐번에 따르면, 캐시는 공연 중에 자발적으로 〈A Boy Named Sue〉를 공연하기로 결정했고 TV 제작진이나 그의 밴드 모두 그가 그것을 할 계획이라는 것을 알지 못했다.

TV 특수 및 가운데 손가락 사진 
영국의 그라나다 텔레비전의 한 제작진은 텔레비전으로 방송하기 위해 이 콘서트를 촬영했다. 2000년 컬럼비아/레거시가 발표한 콘서트의 확장판에서 캐시는 〈I Walk the Line〉의 공연에 앞서 무엇을 부르고 어디에 서 있어야 하는지 듣고 좌절감을 표현하는 것을 들었다. 카메라에 가운데 손가락 제스처를 취하는 화난 모습의 유명한 이미지는 공연에서 비롯되었다. 2000년 재발행의 그의 라이너 노트에서, 캐시는 그라나다의 영화 제작진이 관객에 대한 그의 시야를 가린 것에 대해 좌절감을 느꼈다고 설명한다. 제작진들이 "무대를 비워달라"는 그의 요청을 무시하자, 그는 제스처를 취했다.

곡 목록

인증

각주

외부 링크 
 At San Quentin (2000 CD release) (Adobe Flash) at Radio3Net (streamed copy where licensed)
 Sony/Columbia/Legacy Johnny Cash At San Quentin liner notes legacyrecordings.com.
 At San Quentin – Legacy Edition
 Daniel Geary, "'The Way I Would Feel About San Quentin': Johnny Cash and the Politics of Country Music," Daedalus, 142 (Fall 2013), 64-72.  http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/DAED_a_00234

1969년 라이브 음반
2008년 영상 음반
조니 캐시의 라이브 음반
컬럼비아 레코드 음반
라이브 비디오 음반