Cash’s fib, feathers, cliffs on summer list
It was 1969 and ex-con Johnny Cash looked out at his audience, a room full of inmates in Folsom Prison. Tough crowd. Then he started singing.
When I was just a baby My Mama told me, “Son Always be a good boy Don’t ever play with guns” But I shot a man in Reno Just to watch him die..
The audience cheered. A very tough crowd.
Only, it’s not true, not the cheering part. At least it’s not true according to Danny Robbins in his audiobook – really more like a five-part podcast, but hey, the lines are blurring.
The story is told in Folsom Untold: The Strange True Story of Johnny Cash’s Greatest Album, a two-hour, 21-minute exploration of the song.
Seems Cash wasn’t much of an ex-con, he tended to end up in jail to dry out. And by Jan. 13, 1968 when he appeared at Folsom his career was slowing down. When he went back to the studio to prepare the live version for release they added the inmates cheering bit. Inmates didn’t dare make any noise, fearing payback from guards after. Great song though. And a fun, quick audiobook worth a summer listen. Here are some other suggestions, the final part of my annual list for those looking to turn off the world for a bit and relax this summer.
• Speaking of strange, consider The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst by Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall.
Crowhurst was – let’s be charitable – something of an eccentric who decided in the fall of 1968 to sail around the world from England. Non-stop. Alone. To win a race. Only problem was he was inexperienced and he cheated, never getting any farther than the South Atlantic. His boat was found. He wasn’t.
• I don’t really follow soccer, football to the rest of the world, but I stumbled onto the book Fearless: How Leicester City Shook the Premier League, and What it Means for Sport by Jonathan Northcroft.
Life sucked for Leicester on March 21, 2015 when it lost it sixth game in eight matches. It’s time among the top teams in the English Premier League seemed over.
Then the boys started winning and, well if this was a Disney movie you’d roll your eyes, but it isn’t. It’s just amazing. Loved the book. Still don’t watch soccer, where a 2-1 score is considered thrilling.
• There’s a market for stolen feathers and the buyers are salmon flytyers determined to create works of art using rare bits of endangered birds, no matter what.
That’s the story behind The Feather Thief: Beauty Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson.
Edwin Rist, a a 20-year-old American flutist studying at the Royal Academy of Music, smashed a window and made off with drawers worth of tropical bird feathers from a British museum. Some were over a hundred years old.
He needed money for his musical career, and his parents’ Labradoodle-breeding business. It just gets stranger, and more fascinating, from there.
• Then there’s Alex Honnold. His story is told in The Impossible Climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan and the Climbing Life.
He climbed 3,000 feet up the often vertical cliff face in Yosemite National Park without ropes, using just his hands and feet. Google him. The YouTube video will give you nightmares.