At Folsom Prison (45RPM)＜完全生産限定盤＞

1968年作品 ジョニー・キャッシュが刑務所で行なった慰問コンサート『At Folsom Prison』(邦題:監獄の唄)モービル・フィデリティ盤

1968年作品。ジョニー・キャッシュは、ポール・マッカートニーやU2を始め多くのアーティストからリスペクトされる偉大なるカントリー・シンガーである。『At Folsom Prison』(邦題:監獄の唄)は、1968年1月13日カリフォルニアはサクラメントから北東18マイルにあるフォルサムの町にある州立フォルサム刑務所で行なった慰問コンサートの模様を収録したライヴ・アルバム。
周囲からの反対を押し切って実現された本作は、実現するのに6年もかかり、観衆である受刑者たちにあえて踏み込んでいくキャッシュと、それを受け止める彼らが一体となるさまを捉えた白熱のドキュメント。深い感動が拡がる歴史的名盤。
彼の2005年に公開された自伝映画『ウォーク・ザ・ライン/君につづく道』でもキー・シーンとなっている。

Folsom Prison looms large in Johnny Cash's legacy, providing the setting for perhaps his definitive song and the location for his definitive album, At Folsom Prison. The ideal blend of mythmaking and gritty reality, At Folsom Prison is the moment when Cash turned into the towering Man in Black, a haunted troubadour singing songs of crime, conflicted conscience, and jail. Surely, this dark outlaw stance wasn't a contrivance but it was an exaggeration, with Cash creating this image by tailoring his set list to his audience of prisoners, filling up the set with tales of murder and imprisonment -- a bid for common ground with the convicts, but also a sly way to suggest that maybe Cash really did shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Given the cloud of death that hangs over the songs on At Folsom Prison, there's a temptation to think of it as a gothic, gloomy affair or perhaps a repository of rage, but what's striking about Cash's performance is that he never romanticizes either the crime or the criminals: if anything, he underplays the seriousness with his matter-of-fact ballad delivery or how he throws out wry jokes. Cash is relating to the prisoners and he's entertaining them too, singing "Cocaine Blues" like a bastard on the run, turning a death sentence into literal gallows humor on "25 Minutes to Go," playing "I Got Stripes" as if it were a badge of pride. Never before had his music seemed so vigorous as it does here, nor had he tied together his humor, gravity, and spirituality in one record. In every sense, it was a breakthrough, but more than that, At Folsom Prison is the quintessential Johnny Cash album, the place where his legend burns bright and eternal. [This Expanded Edition of At Folsom Prison added three bonus tracks to the songs included in the original 16-track LP.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine