The prison albums sum up everything I love about music. I’ve never been able to explain to anyone adequately why I love these two albums so much. I don’t think I’ve ever played them to anyone for fear that they won’t get it and won’t get how much I love them. It’s a risk playing music that means something to you to your friends, there is a risk that they’ll laugh and then you’ll have to pretend that this track you’ve played them didn’t really mean that much to you and that they haven’t just mocked part of your inner soul that you rarely show anyone. It’s a risk I rarely take, music is so personal to each one of us and for those of us who express our souls through the music we listen to, who have a soundtrack to our lives, who have a song in our heads constantly it’s a risk to expose that to others who might not understand.
Anyway, I love these albums because you can hear the men responding to the songs on them, you can hear that Johnny was doing something magical in those prisons as he sang songs that identified with their plight, as he didn’t preach to them but sang with them in their pain, repentance and unrepentance. The roar of appreciation for the line “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” sends shivers up my spine. I couldn’t believe what was going on when I first listened to these albums, some songs took my breath away and left me stunned at his guts, understanding and presence. I haven’t listened to this album with anyone else and I’m not sure I ever could, what if they didn’t get it? I can’t explain even here what this music does to me, what the sound of a man bringing hope to others and being able to hear hope living and breathing does deep inside me.
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