Folsom Prison Blues Thesis

Recording “Folsom Prison Blues” helped to bring Johnny back in good favor to the public eye. Saul then arranged shows for Johnny to play for promoters who lost all their money after he cancelled on them. He almost ended his comeback in May of 1968 when he and June honeymooned in Israel. This gave him the idea for writing songs about Jesus and the Holy Land. Obviously, Saul was concerned about a religious record being the follow up to “Folsom Prison Blues.” After just establishing Johnny’s prison persona, Saul did not want him to sing about Jesus. This would not go over well in the media. Johnny at this point had no intention of ever recording another prison record but Saul found his way around that. In February 1969, Granada Television wanted to put Johnny in a prison documentary. Saul took advantage of this and pushed Johnny and Columbia Records to record his San Quentin LP. This made him an international artist, as it was set in England. While Johnny was prospering, Saul was
Saul began to work on getting it produced but no one wanted to touch it. Johnny ended up using his own money to make it happen. Saul played Caiaphas, a Jewish priest who was supposedly was involved in Jesus’ crucifixion. On Easter in 1972, Johnny played portions of the movie, Gospel Road, for his audience and they complained about religion being thrown at them. Saul was beginning to not care about money and wanted to spend time with his family rather than working. He said that “Johnny robbed his soul and he thought he was trying to save it for him through his fundamentalist Christianity jazz” and that he found it offensive (Holiff, 2013). Saul told Johnny that his entire audience was not Christian and the movie would not reach everyone. He was right and the media criticized Gospel