One of his earliest songs, Cash first recorded this for Sun Records in 1956, but it was the thrilling, electric version recorded live at Folsom Prison in California on January 13, 1968 that came to define his outlaw persona. The Live From Folsom Prison album helped revitalize his career - his last Country chart-topper and Top 40 Hot 100 entry was "Understand Your Man" in 1964.

"Folsom Prison Blues" was a #1 Country hit for four weeks and generated a great deal of interest in the rebellious Johnny Cash, who made prison reform his political cause of choice and started regularly performing in jails, doing about 12 shows a year - for free - mostly in Folsom and San Quentin. Said Cash: "I don't see anything good come out of prison. You put them in like animals and tear out the souls and guts of them, and let them out worse than they went in."

Standing up for the rights of prisoners is not a popular stance, but Cash came off as a champion for the oppressed. His next hit, recorded in San Quentin Prison, was the humorous "A Boy Named Sue," which proved that he could be clever and funny (at least while singing words written by Shel Silverstein). Cash got his own national TV show in 1969 and became one of the most popular entertainers of his era. Regarding his mystique, his daughter Rosanne later said, "He was a real man with great faults, and great genius and beauty in him, but he wasn't this guy who could save you or anyone else."

The most famous line in this song, "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die," Cash said he wrote while "Trying to think of the worst reason for killing another person." He added, "It did come to mind quite easily, though." He came up with the line after watching the 1951 movie Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison while serving in West Germany with the US Air Force.

This song makes a great case that song lyrics do not encourage people to kill. As rap lyrics got more violent, many activists claimed that listeners would emulate the songs, which often detail graphic murder. In this song, Cash sings about killing a man in cold blood, and almost 70 years later, no one has shot a man in Reno as a result of this song.

The lyrics to this song were based on a 1953 recording called Crescent City Blues by a bandleader named Gordon Jenkins with Beverly Maher on vocals. The song was part of an album called Seven Dreams, in which a narrator describes various dreams, including this one where he finds himself conducting a train. After filing a lawsuit, Gordon Jenkins received an out-of-court settlement from Cash in 1969.

This is the first song Cash performed at his show where Live From Folsom Prison was recorded. Bob Johnston, famous for his work with Bob Dylan, produced the album and arranged for the prison performance. According to Johnson, he told Cash to "just go out and say who you are" when he took the stage, so Cash opened the set with what became his catch phrase: "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash."

These are the words he used to start every episode of his TV series The Johnny Cash Show, which ran from 1969-1971.
In 1968, Cash won a Grammy award for Best Country Vocal Performance, Male, for the live version.