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Chris
10-14-2017, 12:15 PM
Johnny Cash And The Story Behind 'Folsom Prison Blues' (http://tpr.org/post/johnny-cash-and-story-behind-folsom-prison-blues)


"Folsom Prison Blues" is a country/rockabilly song that expresses the laments of a fictional inmate at Folsom Prison who wishes he could ride a nearby train away from his confinement and to San Antonio. Johnny Cash wrote the song in 1953 while stationed in Germany serving in the Air Force. Cash was inspired to pen the song after seeing the Hollywood drama film “Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison.”

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9uk6NHK-AE


But why San Antonio?

66 years ago this week in S.A., Johnny Cash met the 'prettiest girl he'd ever seen' (http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/celebrities/article/SA-Johnny-Cash-met-prettiest-girl-he-d-ever-seen-11299314.php)


Nearly 70 years ago in San Antonio, Johnny Cash met the woman who he described as "prettiest girl he had ever seen."

Vivian Liberto inspired one of Cash's most infamous songs, "I walk the line," as she swept the singer off his feet at a San Antonio skating rink.

Liberto, 17, met Cash, 19, on July 18, 1951 three weeks before he was deployed by the Air Force.

While the musician was in training at the Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio would host a romance that would eventually spawn one of the greatest hits ever made.

And...

Johnny Cash's Alamo City courtship (http://www.expressnews.com/150years/culture/article/Johnny-Cash-courted-married-SA-woman-while-at-6294562.php)


The rustic cedar bench that sat unobtrusively along the River Walk for more than 50 years certainly shows its age. The knotty slats have been worn smooth by tens of thousands of backs and backsides. Here and there, chunks of wood are missing.


The same weathering that gives the bench its character also nearly conceals the secret that makes it an historic artifact: On one end of the bench — the right side for someone sitting on it — you can see a faint etching in the wood of the seat, as if someone took a penknife to it to inscribe a message of love.

And that’s exactly what a teenage Johnny Cash did in 1951.

...Exactly what he engraved is unclear, however. Today the bench is so worn that only a few faint letters are visible: the J in Johnny and part of Vivian's name. Hilburn says it reads “J.C. Loves V.L.”, while in a letter Cash wrote while overseas, he remembered it as “Johnny loves Vivian.” Others read it, “Johnny Luvs Vivian.”

After Cash shipped out and all during his three years overseas, he and Vivian corresponded relentlessly. Hilburn estimates they exchanged more than 1,000 letters.

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Robert Hilburn book touches on Johnny Cash's time in S.A. (http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/music-stage/article/Robert-Hilburn-book-touches-on-Johnny-Cash-s-time-4993747.php)


There was a time when Johnny Cash's name didn't make much of an impression.

That may explain why Elmore L. Richey never got around to telling his great-niece that he'd issued a marriage license for one John R. Cash and Vivian Dorraine Liberto on Aug. 5, 1954.

The 22-year-old Cash and his 20-year-old fiancée were married two days later at St. Ann Catholic Church just off Fredericksburg Road with an uncle of the bride, the Rev. Vincent Liberto, conducting the ceremony.