At San Quentin

Recorded at San Quentin State Prison on 24 February 1969, it was the first album after the death of Luther Perkins, with Bob Wootton on lead guitar. Granada Television filmed the show, directed by Michael Darlow. Cash performed San Quentin and A Boy Named Sue for the first time that day, reading Sue from a lyric sheet. Jackson and Orange Blossom Special were played but left off the record. The famous photograph of Cash raising his middle finger comes from this show, and he said he was frustrated that the television crew blocked his view. Starkville City Jail and Blistered run about half a step slow, possibly because of a tape machine change. Amanda Petrusich, reviewing the Legacy Edition for Pitchfork in 2006, noted that the previous year's Folsom album had spent 39 weeks on the Billboard chart while San Quentin sat at number one for four consecutive weeks. The original LP had ten songs and a 2000 reissue 18, while the three-disc Legacy set holds all 31, thirteen of them previously unavailable, with the 1969 Granada documentary. Carl Perkins opened the show with Blue Suede Shoes, followed by the Statler Brothers and the Carter Family.

Reception

It went to number one on the Top LPs chart and the country chart and was certified triple Platinum. Cash won the Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal for A Boy Named Sue, and the album was nominated for Album of the Year. Critics at the time were less warm than the buyers: Phil Marsh of Rolling Stone wrote that Cash sounds very tired, and Robert Christgau of The Village Voice thought it much inferior to Folsom Prison and Greatest Hits. Later writers came round. Phil Sutcliffe in Blender (2000) said the reissue surpasses the vinyl original, and PopMatters gave it ten out of ten in 2006.