Welcome
to the Tuesday Timeline portion of the blog - a
weekly look back through time to see what sort of events happened in the world
of pop culture. I always love doing
these things, and therefore, I don't mind putting forth a little extra effort.
So,
let us take a look at what happened throughout history on the thirteenth day of
January. We'll start with a sampling of
appetizers from the history books, followed by a side order of celebrity
birthdays. By the end of it, I will
have the main course of the Tuesday Timeline entry out of the oven. And if you're good, I may provide a little
bit of dessert for you.
Okay,
mouths watering yet? Here we go!
1547 - Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, is sentenced to
death on charges of treason
1815 - British troops capture Fort Peter in St. Mary's,
Georgia
1830 - The Great Fire of Louisiana begins
1840 - One hundred and thirty-nine people lose their
lives in the sinking of the steamship Lexington, off the coast of Long
Island, New York
1847 - The Mexican-American War comes to a close with
the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga
1898 - Emile Zola's letter J'accuse exposes the
Dreyfus affair
1910 - The first public radio broadcast takes place in
New York, where a performance of Cavalleria rusticana from the Metropolitan
Opera House
1915 - Nearly thirty thousand people die in a
devastating earthquake in Avezzano, Italy
1919 - Actor and "Unsolved Mysteries" host
Robert Stack (d. 2003) is born in Los Angeles, California
1929 - Famous American sheriff Wyatt Earp dies at the
age of 80
1931 - Actor/director Charles Nelson Reilly (d. 2007) is
born in South Bronx, New York
1938 - Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Jean
"Cabu" Cabut (d. 2015) is born
1941 - Irish author James Joyce passes away at the age
of 58
1942 - Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile - 30%
lighter than a standard car at that time
1949 - Former president of NBC Brandon Tartikoff (d.
1997) is born in Freeport, New York
1964 - One hundred people are killed in anti-Muslim
riots in Calcutta, India
1982 - Air Florida Flight 90 crashes into Washington
D.C.'s 14th Street Bridge and sinks into the Potomac River, killing 78 people
in total
1985 - A passenger train plunges into a ravine in
Ethiopia, killing 428 people
1990 - Douglas Wilder becomes the first African-American
person to take the position of governor in the state of Virginia
2010 - Singer-songwriter Teddy Pendergrass passes away,
aged 59
2012 - The Costa Concordia cruise ship sinks off
the coast of Italy, killing at least thirty-two people
And
celebrating a birthday on January 13 are...Frances Sternhagen, Chris Wiggins, Rip Taylor, Edmund White, Carol Cleveland, Richard Moll, Trevor Rabin, Jay McInerney, Janet Hubert, Wayne Coyne, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Trace Adkins, Bill Bailey, Penelope Ann Miller, Patrick Dempsey, Annie Jones, Traci Bingham, Keith Coogan, Shonda Rhimes, John Mallory Asher, Nicole Eggert, Atoosa Rubinstein, William Ash, Orlando Bloom, Katy Brand, Ruth Wilson, Beau Mirchoff, and Liam Hemsworth.
And
now, on with today's look back through time.
Today's
event took place on January 13, 1968. That's 47 years ago today!
And,
well...let's just say that January 13, 1968 was a date in which one of the most
famous concerts ever performed took place.
The entertainer played to a packed house, and certainly everyone who was
in attendance certainly appeared to have a good time.
The
catch was that most of you reading this blog post right now probably won't
remember seeing it. Mostly because most
of you were probably born after 1968.
But if there's anyone out there reading this post that is old enough to
remember this concert, I bet you had difficulty securing tickets to this
gig. That's because none were ever
printed.
No,
the only way to get into this particular concert was to commit a crime. A crime serious enough to land you a prison
sentence.
Now,
I bet you're thinking to yourselves "what kind of man would ever agree to
perform a show in front of a group of convicted felons at a prison"? I've seen episodes of "Beyond Scared
Straight". Performing a concert at
a prison would be the equivalent of jumping in front of a speeding train these
days!
But
country music legend Johnny Cash decided to take a chance and that's exactly
what he did.
On
January 13, 1968, Johnny Cash performed at Folsom State Prison. The end result provided a free show for the
inmates incarcerated in the prison at the time, and provided material for
Johnny Cash's 27th album!
And
wouldn't you know it? When the album
"At Folsom Prison" was released four months later in May 1968, it hit
#1 on the country charts, and was certified triple platinum in 2003 - the same
year that Johnny Cash passed away.
But
here's the million dollar question.
What in the world would possess Cash to even perform a concert - let
alone record an entire live album - inside of a prison?
Well,
he had wanted to do a project like that for quite some time. In 1955, Cash released the single
"Folsom Prison Blues", a song that came to him after he watched the
1953 film "Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison". The song quickly became a huge hit, and it
gained quite a following inside prisons all over the United States. Prisoners actually wrote Johnny Cash letters
from their cells, asking Johnny to perform the song live inside of their
prisons! Now, in today's world, this
would seem unthinkable, but Cash was more than willing to honour his end of the
deal. In fact, his first performance at
a prison took place eleven years prior to the Folsom Prison gig, in 1957, and
over the next eleven years he had plenty of practice by going around various
prisons all over the United States to perform concerts for the inmates.
Of
course, the period between 1955 and 1965 was considered to be Cash's golden era
of performing. He had charted hit after
hit with such singles as "I Walk The Line" and "Ring of
Fire", but by 1965 he found that his music wasn't getting a lot of
airplay. This was also compounded by
the fact that Cash had started dabbling in drugs around this time and was
becoming quite the addict. The year before
"At Folsom Prison" was recorded, Cash sought treatment for his
addiction, and these efforts proved successful. As 1967 ended and 1968 began, his recreational drug use
decreased, and he became more focused on his career.
Interestingly
enough, the period in which Cash decided to make a comeback came right around
the same time that a change in personnel at Cash's record label was taking
place. The man who was now in charge of
the country sector of Columbia Records was Bob Johnston, who was known in the
music industry for being quite unpredictable, and often made impulsive
decisions and often butted with executive heads over said decisions.
In
short, Johnston was the perfect person for Cash to go to in order to float his
idea of not only performing at Folsom Prison, but to record an album there as
well. Johnston wasted no time in
approving Cash's request, and he even got on the phone to call Folsom Prison
and San Quentin State Prison to see if they would be willing to accommodate
Cash's request. Folsom responded first,
so the concert was recorded there.
Interestingly
enough, there were two separate concerts recorded on the morning of January 13,
1968. One was performed at 9:40 in the
morning. The second one was performed
exactly three hours later at 12:40pm.
The reason for the double performances was simple. If in case there were any problems with the
audio during the morning performance, they would use the recordings from the
afternoon performance and splice the two together, if necessary. As it turned out, the second performance
really wasn't needed, as most of the album was made up of songs from the first
concert. Still, two songs from the
second set did make it onto the finished cut.
And
some may not know this, but Johnny Cash actually had an opening act preceding
him. Carl Perkins performed "Blue
Suede Shoes" - later made famous by Elvis Presley, and The Statler
Brothers performed "Flowers on the Wall" and "This Old House".
The
end result was that the album was released four months later, and quickly
became a best-selling album for Cash.
The album also renewed Johnny Cash's popularity and as the 1970s began,
he had been given even more opportunities than ever before. "At Folsom Prison" wasn't the only
album that Cash would release from a prison either. In 1969, he recorded another album from San Quentin State Prison,
which gave us the single "A Boy Named Sue". Cash also worked out a deal with ABC to have his own television
show which ran for two seasons from 1969-1971.
And
just to give you a little bit of an idea as to how successful this album
became, here's a list of statistics for you.
As
mentioned, the album hit triple platinum status in 2003. But did you know that it also...
-
placed 88th on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All
Time"?
-
added into the Library of Congress' "National Recording Registry"?
-
named the third greatest country music album ever recorded by the CMT network?
-
named as one of the 100 Greatest Albums of All Time by TIME Magazine?
Now,
that is outstanding!
It
definitely was a risk for Cash to record and release an album from inside of a
prison, but in this case, that risk paid off handsomely. Cash had another hit record, which
resurrected his career at the same time.
Even better was the fact that even though Cash's concert was made up of
99% prisoners, they sat still and behaved themselves during the whole show!
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