Glen Sherley Live At Vacaville, California (CD)

1-CD mit 20-seitigem Booklet, 14 Einzeltitel. Spieldauer 29:49 Minuten. 

THE JOHNNY CASH CONNECTION 

Eine neue Generation entdeckte Johnny Cash in den 50er Jahren, eine andere in den 60er und frühen 70er Jahren. Neu entdeckt wurde er in den 90ern, und wieder andere fanden Zugang zu seinem Werk, nachdem sie den biographischen Film 'Walk The Line' gesehen hatten, der in den USA landesweit und auch rund um den Globus zu einem Kinoerfolg der ersten Kategorie geworden ist. Bear Family hatte schon 1978 die Arbeiten von Johnny Cash veröffentlicht, als sich kaum noch jemand um den Künstler scherte.

Wir aber setzten weiter auf ihn, veröffentlichten richtungweisende CD-Boxen (und ernteten dafür höchstens Kopfschütteln). Seitdem haben wir neben bekanntem und unveröffentlichtem Johnny Cash-Song-Material auch immer wieder optische Memorabilien entdeckt und zugänglich gemacht und unsere Produkte mit unterhaltsam-informativen Begleittexten ausgestattet. Besonders stolz sind wir auf eine äußerung des 'Walk The Line'-Regisseur James Mangold in der Zeitschrift 'Musik Express', der erklärte: 'Würde es die Box-Sets von Bear Family nicht geben, wäre es nie zu diesem Film gekommen....Es waren definitiv die Bilder und die Texte, die mir erst das richtige Gefühl für diese ära vermitteln konnten.' Für Johnny-Cash-Sammler haben wir jetzt einige hochinteressante neue Veröffentlichungen. Im Januar 1968 spielte Johnny Cash sein legendäres Konzert im Knast von Folsom. Im Repertoire hatte er auch den Songs eines der Inhaftierten namens Glen Sherley. Dieses Lied, Greystone Chapel, wurde – ausgekoppelt aus der 'Folsom'-LP, zu einem unverhofften Hit, und Johnny Cash begann, sich für Glen Sherley zu interessieren. Der wurde 1971 entlassen und Johnny Cash versprach, sich um ihn zu kümmern und ihm Arbeit in seinen Shows zu beschaffen. Mit Johhny Cashs Unterstützung erhielt Glen Sherley einen Vertrag bei Mega Records und nahm im Gefängnis von Vacaville eine LP auf. Sie galt lange Zeit als unentdeckter Klassiker und als eine der wirklichen Outlaw-Scheiben. Glen Sherley besang darauf das Leben, wie er es als Erwachsener nie anders kennengelernt hatte – in Songs wie If This Prison Yard Could Talk , FBI Top 10 , Looking Back In Anger und Measure Of A Man.

Kompromißlose Musik eines kompromißlosen Mannes. Wir haben zum Tracklisting der Original-LP noch zwei extrem seltene Singles hinzugefügt, die nicht auf dem ursprünglichen Album enthalten waren.

Glen Sherley

Just thirty-five years have elapsed, but all of the major participants in the short and tragic saga of Glen Sherley are no longer among us. The most tangible artifact is this record, itself unavailable for many years. Glen Sherley left us with little in the way of interviews and published recollections, but his record imparts a very sure sense of who he was and what he believed.

To all intents and purposes the story begins at the El Rancho Motel in Sacramento, California, late in the evening of January 12, 1968. Johnny Cash and June Carter were booked in there, and Cash was anxiously checking weather reports from Nashville, concerned that Carl Perkins, the Statler Brothers, the Tennessee Three, and Columbia's A&R man, Bob Johnston, would be unable to join him. He had a show planned at Folsom Prison the following day, and it was to be recorded. Then, as midnight approached, he found that the rest of his troupe was in San Francisco and knew they'd be able to make it.

A local clergyman, Floyd Gressett, ministered to Cash when he lived near Ventura, California, and started prison visits when one of his parishioners, Earl C. Green, was convicted of murdering a man with a baseball bat. Gressett went to see Green at San Quentin, where he was scheduled for execution. "After eighteen months on 'the row," Gressett told a local reporter, Glen Beley, "he received a reduced term to life imprisonment and was transferred to Folsom Prison. I continued to visit him at Folsom and he became the 'Voice of Folsom Prison' on their radio station that was beamed into the cells."  Green loved Johnny Cash's music, and asked Gressett if it would be possible to schedule a Cash prison concert. Two years later, in November 1966, Cash made an unheralded first appearance at Folsom, and went over so well that Gressett was asked repeatedly to book a return visit. A return date was eventually set for January 13, 1968. Meanwhile, Earl Green had convinced a young inmate, Glen Sherley, to give one of his songs to Gressett. Sherley eventually asked for it to be returned. "I felt it wasn't very good," he said, "and if Cash never heard it, he couldn't turn it down. That way, I could always think it was good." But Gressett was insistent that Cash hear the song.

Cash visited his parents in Los Angeles before flying up to Sacramento with his wife, June, and his father, Ray. Reporter Gene Beley and Floyd Gressett flew up with them. They settled into the El Rancho Motel, and, just as Cash was getting ready to go bed, Gressett knocked on his door, asking a favor. "John," he said,

"I want you to hear a song written by Glen Sherley. He's serving five to life for armed robbery. You've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to tell you about it but I thought if you could mention tomorrow that you've heard the tape, it would please that ol'  boy who wrote it."

"Does anyone have a tape recorder?" Cash asked.

Beley had a tape machine to make a reference recording of the concert. They put on Sherley's tape and everyone listened. "All right," came a voice, "this is a take on 'Greystone Chapel.'"

Inside the walls of prison, my body may be,

But the Lord has set my soul free...

 

Glen Sherley Live At Vacaville, California
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