{"id":102973,"date":"2025-07-29T20:32:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T20:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/102973\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T20:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T20:32:11","slug":"on-this-day-in-1968-johnny-cash-was-at-no-1-with-a-song-that-got-him-sued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/102973\/","title":{"rendered":"On This Day in 1968, Johnny Cash Was at No. 1 with a Song That Got Him Sued"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this day (July 29) in 1968, Johnny Cash<\/a> was in the middle of a four-week run at the top of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart with \u201cFolsom Prison Blues.\u201d He originally released the song as a B-side to a top-five hit in 1955. Two years later, it appeared on his debut album, Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar. More than a decade later, it became a hit in its own right.<\/p>\n

Cash originally released \u201cFolsom Prison Blues\u201d as the B-side to his second single, \u201cSo Doggone Lonesome.\u201d The single peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. He recorded the track again for his first live album, At Folsom Prison, in 1968. He released it as the album\u2019s sole single on April 30, 1968. and it peaked at No. 1 on July 20. \u201cFolsom Prison Blues\u201d topped the chart for four consecutive weeks.<\/p>\n

[RELATED: On This Day in 2006, Johnny Cash\u2019s Second Posthumous Album Gave Him His First Solo No. 1 in Decades]<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Johnny Cash Faced Legal Issues Over \u201cFolsom Prison Blues\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFolsom Prison Blues\u201d is one of Johnny Cash\u2019s signature songs. He famously wrote the song after watching the 1951 movie Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison. However, some may not know that he also pulled heavily from the 1953 Gordon Jenkins-penned song \u201cCrescent City Blues<\/a>,\u201d recorded by Jenkins\u2019 wife, Beverly Mahr.<\/p>\n

Cash pulled many of the lyrics of \u201cFolsom Prison Blues\u201d directly from \u201cCrescent City Blues.\u201d For instance, the opening lines of both songs reference the train \u201ca-comin\u2019 \u2018round the bend.\u201d Additionally, the opening lines of the songs\u2019 second verses are almost identical. Cash\u2019s version is When I was just a baby, my mama told me, Son. The older song\u2019s second verse starts with When I was just a baby, my mama told me, Sue.<\/p>\n

Jenkins didn\u2019t take Cash to court when he initially released the song. However, when \u201cFolsom Prison Blues\u201d became a major hit, he sued the country legend. They settled out of court for $75,000, according to MPR News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Featured Image by Gai Terrell\/Redferns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On this day (July 29) in 1968, Johnny Cash was in the middle of a four-week run at…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":102974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[20560,185,3988,171,63151,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-102973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-1960s","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-country-music","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-johnny-cash","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114938429134262691","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}