<body><div><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3vorYe_0qW7zZyn00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3vorYe_0qW7zZyn00" width="2000" height="800" >It’s New Year’s Day, 1958, and Johnny Cash is playing his first-ever prison concert at San Quentin in California. There, Cash played through a set of his songs, including “Folsom Prison Blues.” In the audience of thousands of men was a 20-year-old Merle Haggard, who was serving a 15-year sentence at San Quentin for a previous attempted burglary.Haggard was transferred to San Quentin after his previous botched attempt at escaping his jail in Bakersfield, California, and only served two years of his sentence. <nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate>Cash’s concert changed Haggard’s outlook on life. The future country outlaw credited Cash for helping inspire him to pursue a music career once he got out.“He had the right attitude,” said Haggard of Cash’s first prison show. “He chewed gum, looked arrogant, and flipped the bird to the guards. He did everything the prisoners wanted to do. He was a mean mother from the South who was there because he loved us.”He continued, “When he walked away, everyone in that place had become a Johnny Cash fan.”[RELATED: 10 Songs You Didn’t Know Johnny Cash Wrote for Other Artists]Cash’s PerformanceThe night before performing, Haggard said Cash had been to a party in San Francisco and had lost his voice and could barely speak. At first, the audience was skeptical of the country artist. <nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate>“I thought ‘This guy’s in trouble,'” said Haggard in a 2013 interview with Dan Rather. “There’s 5,000 men here, and he can’t talk, can’t sing. I was engrossed with wondering how he was going to pull this off.”Haggard continued, “Country music was not like it is now. Country music was down your nose at that time compared to what it is now, so the visit of Johnny Cash was not all that cool in the joint.”Before Cash started the show, he asked for a glass of water, Haggard remembered, but was ignored by a guard standing nearby chewing gum. “When he asked for the water of course he had everybody in the audience looking at him,” said Haggard, pretending to chew gum like Cash did mocking the guard, “and he mocked that guard. Well, he won the whole audience.”When Cash left, there were inmates all around the prison yard playing guitar, said Haggard. <nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate>“I was the teacher,” said Haggard. “They all knew that I played. There must have been 20 [guys] who come up to me and said ‘Can you show me how he did [Cash] that intro to ‘Folsom Prison Blues’?'”He continued “All of a sudden we were more popular. We had more clout because we understood what that guy did.”[RELATED: The Meaning of Merle Haggard’s 1969 Protest Song “Okie From Muskogee”]1960Once released from prison in 1960, Haggard began turning his life around and released his debut album, Strangers, by 1965.Throughout the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, Haggard produced 38 No. 1 Country hits, including “Okie From Muskogee,” “Working Man Blues,” “Sing My Back Home,” “The Fightin’ Side Of Me,” “Today I Started Loving You Again,” and “Mama Tried.”<nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate>Haggard continued releasing music through the 2010s, including his final album, Django and Jimmie, a collaboration with Willie Nelson, which was released in 2015.Cash Returns to San QuentinOn February 24, 1969, Cash returned to San Quentin, and the concert was recorded for his 31st album, Johnny Cash at San Quentin.This time the concert was filmed, and Cash played through a 22-song set, which included “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Ring of Fire” and the premiere of a new song, “San Quentin,” about an inmate’s hatred of the prison.San Quentin, you’ve been living hell to meYou’ve blistered me since 1963I’ve seen them come and go and I’ve seen them dieAnd long ago I stopped asking whySan Quentin, I hate every inch of you<nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate>You’ve cut me and you’ve scarred me through and throughAnd I’ll walk out a wiser, weaker manMr. Congressman, you can’t understandSan Quentin, what good do you think you do?Do you think I’ll be different when you’re through?You bend my heart and mind, and you warp my soulYour stone walls turn my blood a little coldJohnny Cash at San Quentin was the second in line of Cash’s prison albums and followed his iconic At Folsom Prison in 1968. Cash also released På Österåker in 1973 and A Concert Behind Prison Walls in 1976.Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</div></body>

Mountain View, CA

It’s New Year’s Day, 1958, and Johnny Cash is playing his first-ever prison concert at San Quentin in California. There, Cash played through a set of his songs, including “Folsom Prison Blues.” In the audience of thousands of men was a 20-year-old Merle Haggard, who was serving a 15-year sentence at San Quentin for a previous attempted burglary.