The Time Johnny Cash Almost Started a Prison Riot at San Quentin

“I think this is a very important thing: to give a man some hope in prison, to give a man some encouragement to be a better citizen while he is there and if he is a better citizen, while he is there, he is going to come out a better citizen.”
–Johnny Cash, testifying before the House Committee on the Judiciary, 1972
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There were signs hanging from the red wall behind the stage in the north dining hall—­a few words and some musical notes that had been rendered in rounded script and sparkled with silver glitter. They were a little gaudy and a bit too small for the space and they were mounted so low it would be hard to read them once the show started. But while the stage was empty, they were clearly visible:

San Quentin
Welcomes
Johnny Cash

The dining hall was cavernous and dank but alive with activity ahead of the day’s performance. Cash conferred with members of his entourage and his wife and costar, June Carter Cash, across a long table as roadies readied the stage and the Carter Family, the Statler Brothers, and the rockabilly singer Carl Perkins prepared for their sets. A film crew and engineers set up recording equipment, and the photographer Jim Marshall documented the swirl of activity.

Cash had been associating himself, rhetorically, with crime and imprisonment for as long as he’d been a working musician, and at San Quentin he presented himself to the audience as their avatar.

It was February 24, 1969, and Cash had a reputation for unpredictability. He’d been using amphetamines heavily for the past decade, and their effect on his health had been devastating. He’d looked skeletal in recent years. His voice was often a sandpapery whisper, and there was no way to know whether he’d appear when he was scheduled to perform or which version of him would step onstage if he did. On good days, he stalked his audiences like a wounded predator—­feral and thrilling as he growled and lashed at his guitar. Other times, he shuffled about like a bone-­weary penitent, looking like each song might end him.

That was the past, though. Cash was trying to get sober and was in good form. He’d regained weight. His voice was gravelly and fulsome, and he was excited to perform with a clear mind.

When the stage was ready, the musicians mounted it for sound check, and Jim Marshall snapped photos. He caught Helen Carter, one of June’s sisters, looking at the floor, her hair bound in curlers covered by a thin white cloth. A shot taken from behind captures W. S. Holland, the band’s drummer, looking across a mostly empty room—­one drumstick resting on the rim of his snare, the other at the edge of a cymbal. And when Marshall saw Cash chatting with June, he called out, “Let’s do one for the warden.” Cash complied. He glared into the lens and contorted his mouth so that it was clear, from the snarling curvature of his lips, that he was forming a hard eff.

Then he leaned forward and threw up his middle finger.

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People started to filter into the dining hall as showtime approached. They filled the seats, then started claiming spaces on the floor and a low set of stairs set against a wall. They wore jumpsuits, denim shirts, faded and softened from long use, or dark sweatshirts; most of their faces were clean-­shaven and their hair cut short. A man seated near the stage smoked a pipe; another wore dark sunglasses. And guards, clustered in small groups, were scattered about the room.

San Quentin loomed large in the popular imagination. It was, supposedly, home to the most dangerous people in California. The prison contained the state’s death row, and held lifers. But when the film crew accompanying Cash interviewed men on the day of his performance, they captured portraits that complicated that perception.

The crew spoke to men in their cells, the camera’s lens focused tightly on their faces as they spoke. People here, one said, “have a wife and kids in a lot of cases. And, uh, they’ve come here for some such crime or something like that. But for the most part they’re not unlike the average man on the street.” “They’re hiding us,” another pronounced. “That society out there created a good many of us. I myself feel that the greatest crime a goodly portion of us at San Quentin are guilty of is one thing: that we were born poor.”

“Every time a bell rings, it means something,” one noted with resignation. “You can do too much time, I think, and it makes you institutionalized and you can’t think for yourself.” Another opined, “Everybody’s playing their own little game trying to get out of this madhouse.” All lamented the violence they’d been exposed to. One said there had been several killings in his first week at the prison. Another reflected that, though the sight of a person in pain had always been upsetting to him, it no longer was. “I’m getting to the point now to where it almost doesn’t even concern me.”

Carl Perkins took the stage to open the show and stepped to the microphone. The room was thick with the din of 1,400 men packed inside a stone box—­their voices, the sound of feet scuffling on the floor, and their hands moving restlessly atop the tables, echoing. But it quieted when he spoke.

“We kinda feel like you’re gonna enjoy yourselves tonight,” he said humbly in his Tennessee twang. “It’s our wishes.” Then he launched into a raucous version of his “Blue Suede Shoes.” When he’d finished playing, the Statler Brothers, and then the Carter Family, took the stage while Cash looked on from a hallway. From his hiding place, he could tell the air carried a charge, and when he felt it spike, he emerged and walked past the front row of dining hall tables, shaking hands as he went.

Looking out at the hundreds of men assembled before him, he felt that, in that moment, he had the power to push them to violence.

The band was playing the opening bars of “Big River,” but the room was otherwise still as he mounted the stage and gave his standard greeting. “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” he said, and the crowd erupted joyously.

Cash had been associating himself, rhetorically, with crime and imprisonment for as long as he’d been a working musician, and at San Quentin he presented himself to the audience as their avatar—­an embodiment of their anger, their hurt. He swaggered, teased with familial kindness, and performed a raucous version of “Folsom Prison Blues.” But once he’d captured their attention, he softened his tone. He played a spiritual called “I Don’t Know Where I’m Bound,” and followed it with a humorous account of the time he was arrested in Starkville, Mississippi. He’d never performed either song before, and the same was true for his next selection.

Seated onstage, Cash explained its origin. “I was thinking about you guys yesterday,” he said. “I’ve been here three times before, and I think I understand a little how you feel about some things. It’s none of my business how you feel about some other things, and I don’t give a damn about how you feel about some other things.” The crowd laughed lightly. “I tried to put myself in your place,” he continued, “and I believe this is the way that I would feel about San Quentin.”

The audience was still as the band started playing a plodding rhythm. “San Quentin,” Cash sang, “you’ve been living hell to me.” After a moment’s delay, the audience realized what he’d said and let loose a collective roar of approval. Cash sang through their cheers, and they quieted so they could hear his words. He cursed the prison, accused it of scarring people, and when he delivered the final line—­“San Quentin, I hate every inch of you”—­the audience erupted joyfully.

They settled after a few moments, but Cash kept them on the line by teasing a reprise. “One more time?” he asked jokingly. He requested a glass of water, and after a guard brought him one and he’d drained it, he smashed the cup underfoot. Then he played the song again, tension building with each verse. The second time through, he ended it, “San Quentin, you’ve been living hell to me,” and the audience leapt onto the tables and stomped and screamed.

With the room shaking, the show’s producer, Bob Johnston, plotted a course toward the nearest group of guards. He thought the crowd was about to riot. Cash had the same idea, and, looking out at the hundreds of men assembled before him, he felt that, in that moment, he had the power to push them to violence.

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Excerpted from The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music by Colin Asher. Copyright© 2026 by Colin Asher. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.