I have a related question. My mother loved Johnny cash and had the Folsom Prison album. It seems to me that although he sang a lot of songs, he never sang the whole song on the album; typically just a verse and a chorus, and I seem to remember that the whole album clocked in at less than an hour.
Was the real concert longer, and the songs just edited shorter for the record?
I have the re-released version from a few years ago, and it’s about 56 minutes long. It has three songs that weren’t on the original: Busted, Joe Bean and the Legend of John Henry’s Hammer. Without those, the album is a little less than 45 minutes. I don’t know about any other edits.
For what it’s worth, here’s a genuine prison reference in an old song that a lot of people miss. Huddie Ledbetter’s (aka Leadbelly) original version of “Midnight Special” has the lines:
If you’re ever in Houston
Well you’d better do right
You’d better not gamble
And you better not fight
Or the sheriff will grab you
And the boys will bring you down
The next thing you know boy
Well, you’re Sugarland bound
The majority of people hearing this probably thought sugarland was some slang term. It’s actually quite literal. Sugarland is a city just southwest of Houston and is the location of a prison.
Are you sure you’re thinking of the Live at Folsom Prison album? The songs on that pretty much go the distance.
And further to what Marley23 said, there’s supposedly a new even more expanded version of the record, with DVD, to make us buy it all over again.
Quasi