The bad-boy spirit of country music legend Johnny Cash returned to the scene of his greatest musical triumph last week when stars of the Cash film biography Walk the Line sang to inmates at Folsom Prison.
Joaquin Phoenix, who plays Cash in the film which opens in London on January 27, performed the singer's Folsom Prison Blues at the jail outside Sacramento, California.
Cash's best-selling live album, made in January 1968, featured the whoop of delight from the 2,000-strong captive audience of murderers and robbers when he sang the words: "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die."
His rapport with the inmates helped to rebrand him as a hard-nosed country rocker, saving a career that had waned after years of drug addiction and brushes with the law.
However, contrary to the jailbird myth that sprung up around him, Cash never spent more than a night in the cells, despite being arrested numerous times.
The concert last week was watched by 70 inmates hand-picked for their record of good behaviour. The rest of Folsom's 4,000-plus convicts remained locked in their cells.
"I felt this was a good example to these guys and an encouragement to them," said Larry West, Folsom's chaplain. "Here was a guy who was an alcoholic, a drug addict. He had tried to commit suicide. I thought it would be a good example of how you can put your life together."
Phoenix, who is tipped for an Oscar nomination this month for his performance, arrived wearing Cash's trademark all-black outfit. He walked through a yard where convicts were being held in isolation, receiving jeers from onlookers.
During his performance, there was no repeat of the prisoners' cheer of delight at the mention of killing for fun. In fact, nearly 40 years on, historians believe that the whoops on the Cash recording were added later by technicians.
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