2/06/2006

Finished Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison by Michael Streissguth on Saturday. It really put me there and created the whole setting in space and time. It gives a brief history of the prison itself and then introduces a black inmate who attended the concerts, gives his slice of life at the time and then revisits him in the present. I thought the best thing about the book was the details on Glen Shirley, author of "Greystone Chapel." Shirley got out of prison, married a woman with two sons and began touring with Cash. He was the poster boy of prisoner reformation. Marshall Grant shared a story about Glen threatening to kill him. So Cash took him off the tour. Glen couldn't make it on the outside and spiraled out of control, leaving his family and living homeless. He finally came home and shot himself. Streissguth surmises that after the 1970s and Glen Shirley's suicide Johnny Cash gave up hope for the possibilities of prison reform. To balance things out Cash began funding police family programs.

1 comment:

Kandace said...

The woman Glen Shirley married was my gramma. :D The two sons were my dad and my uncle. Just an interesting bit of information for ya. :)