Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues vs Jenkins's Crescent City Blues video free download

William Simmons

Cash's Cocaine Blues is a reworking of Riley Pluckett's Chain Gang Blues

arbonac

Sounds like a song that was below mediocrity was brought to high accolade by the Man in Black. Way to go Johnny. You won.

Mondo 357

"Influenced?"  Ripped off is more like it!  Look, I like Johnny Cash and I have always been a fan, but this motherfucker straight jacked this fucking song!  He paid as a result of his thievery so to say that he was "influenced" is putting it very mildly.  I also love the way people downplay this act of straight theft....but imagine you're  the singer singer-writer of the original and you hear this shit on the radio...how the fuck would any person feel?  And on top of it, his song becomes a hit while yours doesn't even break the top 100!

Ken Spooner

It's just a good thing that Cash is god believers weren't judges to rule on this case . Though it never got to court. When it was brought to Cash's attorney's attention he tried to blow it off , until he heard Gordon JEnkin's 1953 recording. Then the out of court settlement and non disclosure agreement was promptly offered.

Roy B

It's a business folks. The Johnny Cash people still make out. You take calculated chances and in this case they made out in a very fat way. You think Cash was the only artist that plagiarized material. OK they got caught and paid the price. They still made out and Cash fans couldn't care less.

Austin Casey

Jenkins' version wins by a landslide. Greater interest, dynamic arrangement and more soul.

SlashedRhoads

fuckin robbed it .... and fuckin paid for it fuckin plagiarized it yeah influenced lol tell that to a workin musician see if you walk away with your teeth

StagPreston

Yes, as Bob Tubert told me at his house in Hendersonville Tenn, a few blocks away from where John lived, John not only settled out of court for 75 grand, but that Gordon Jenkins would receive all future royalties for the song, PROVIDED he did not go to the media about it. That was the deal. This would have been a big blot on his career, at a point where he had a hit TV show and was about to come out with a book about how Jesus had "Saved" him. Maybe it wouldn't have been a big deal if Folsum Prison wasn't his THEME song that opened all of his shows, but it was. Bob was a country songwriter, former manager of Red Foley, manager of Nashboro/Excello division in Nashville. He played me the Seven Dreams record by Gordon Jenkins at his house in about 1973, and I was flabbergasted. My illusions about Johnny Cash were destroyed that day. I called the copyright office myself and they told me, "We can't discuss it other than to state that a settlement was reached between the parties." Bob died this past summer at the age of 90 years old. His wife, Demetiss Tapp, recorded a version of "Crescent City" blues about 30 years ago that he produced. It was Bob's way of letting Music City know that he knew Big John's secret.

Sonny Davila

Johnny Cash just made it better that's all (:

Gus Aguirre

who cares .. everyone has ripped everyone else off... its called.. influences..

Jay Casmirri

Wait just a minute here. The main character in the original song is named "Sue" if you listen. So, what about "A Boy Named Sue?" Coincidence? I think not. Well, maybe.

Melodee Joy

Johnny Cash paid Gordon Jenkin's $75,000 in a copyright infringement case because of the lyrics and similarity of the two songs.

Dan Schwartz

Crescent City (or rather <i>the</i> Crescent City) is a nickname for New Orleans, which is a reasonably big city, not a little town someone would likely feel "stuck" in. But there is also a small town called Crescent City, California, a few miles south of the Oregon state line. I was there briefly in 1995, it was the one and only time I have been on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. So I'm wondering, is this song actually about that town, or is it about "N'Orleans"?

Roger Green

Crescent City Blues was not a Robert Johnson song. It was an instrumental by Little Brother Montgomery, out of Louisiana, purloined by Jenkins.

DoubleJ1203

I hear similarities, but I can hear differences as well. Yes, some of the lines are the same or similar, but Folsom Prison Blues is it's own song.

BloozeDaddy

If you think Cash lifted this song (he obviously did) go look up how Led Zeppelin stole Dazed And Confused (pretty much entirely) and Stairway to Heaven(the signature guitar lick)  People has slightly different standards about the importance of copyrights back in those days I guess.

Fred Herrman

Cash had to pay the writer of "Crescent City" $75,000 as a settlement for taking their song. It's just fact, and it happens. He shouldn't have done it, and I'm sure that Cash learned a lesson. Cash also gave the world a lot of the best original music as well.

redpaul101

What I've never understood about FPB is this: if I shoot a man in Reno, NEVADA, what am I doing banged up in a CALIFORNIA State Pen? I'm mean, when I'm singing this song, what's my motivation here?

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