Glen Sherley - If This Prison Yard Could Talk - Live at Vacaville 1971

In January 1968, Johnny Cash performed his famous concert at Folsom Prison in California, and among the songs he included was one by an inmate, Glen Sherley. That song, Greystone Chapel, became a surprise hit from the LP, and Cash took a special interest in Sherley’s fate. In January 1971, Sherley was released from Folsom and Cash promised to look out for him and get him some work on his shows. With Cash’s help, Sherley secured a contract with Mega Records, and recorded an album back in Vacaville Prison. It has long been heralded as an underground classic and one of the true Outlaw records. Sherley wrote about the only life he’d known for most of his adult life in songs like If This Prison Yard Could Talk, FBI Top 10, Looking Back In Anger, and Measure Of A Man. It was tough, uncompromising music from a tough, uncompromising May 11, 1978, Sherley died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at his brother’s home near Salinas, California.