Most of us are familiar with the name, image, and myth of Johnny Cash, but you couldn't be blamed if you didn't know who Glen Sherley was.  The name Millard Dedmon likely wouldn't ring a bell either.  Sherley and Dedmon were both incarcerated when Cash performed at Folsom Prison in 1968, and their stories, both tragic and redemptive, are pivotal parts of Bestor Cram's feature length documentary, 'Cash At Folsom Prison.' 

The film delves deeply into Cash's life, with the Folsom concert depicted as the event which helps shape his identity and secure his mythological aura.  But it's more than just another movie about the famous musician.  The documentary touches on issues of prison reform, which Cash unapologetically championed, and examines the deep impact his performance had on the prisoners at the notoriously tough institution. 

Photo Credit:  John Chiasson, Getty Images

No video footage of the concert exists, but Cram uses still photos, audio recordings, and most notably, interviews with family members, musicians, and convicts, to weave an intricate portrait of not only Cash, but those who spent most of their years peering between the cold bars of incarceration.

They were the hardened men that the Cash seemed to identify most deeply with.

"Cash had a particularly strong feeling towards people that are disenfranchised, whether they be poor, native American, incarcerated, I think he found himself in some respects knowing his own self better as he interacted with folks who were dealing with troubles where there was injustice and misfortune in their lives," Cram told CityNews.ca.

"I think that's where he found himself most connected to other people.  So the prison actually was a perfect place for him to play because I think it really enabled him to feel as free as he needed to feel in order to connect as a musician.  It just turned out that that freedom was in a place where people lack freedom."

Photo Credit:  Paul Harris, Getty Images

Before the concert Cash becomes aware of Glen Sherley, a convict with a penchant for writing country songs, one of which, 'Greystone Chapel', Cash performs at the concert.  Sherley is injected with hope and a new outlook on life and he maintains a friendship with the country legend during the rest of his stay at Folsom, and after he's eventually set free. 

Cash helps guide him through the unforgiving music industry, but Sherley doesn't adapt well to the outside world, and ends up committing suicide years later after struggling with drugs and depression.

Dedmon also finds hope and meaning in Cash's performance, and after a long, hard stretch behind bars, he's also released.  He's alive and kicking today and has successfully steered clear of prison, but has also been unalterably affected by the cycle of violence that seems so difficult to shatter.  He heart-wrenchingly tells the tale of his own young son's violent demise at the barrel of a gun.

They are the types of stories that Cash was famous for turning into songs, but behind the façade of the outlaw musician there was a man facing his own demons, and as Cram explains, the hurt was all too real. 

"I think that in some respects the evidence of Cash's life is one of being a tortured soul.  And I think that that comes out in the songs that he selected to sing, the audiences who he performed for," he said.

"This is a very profound artist, who in some respects is unwilling to feel comfortable in his art as a singer unless he really reaches into the depths of darkness in himself.  Most of us would say the darkness is too dangerous to go to sometimes, and I think for Cash it was too dangerous not to go there in order to understand it."

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