Lost Notes S1 Ep. 5: Johnny Tried: The Ballad of Glen Sherley
Lost Notes: Groupies
KCRW
4.7 • 721 Ratings
🗓️ 3 May 2018
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Johnny Cash played his iconic concert at Folsom Prison he covered the song of one very talented inmate. Johnny pulled some strings, plucked Glen Sherley from prison and brought him out on the road. Did this turn of fortune wind up helping or hurting the formerly unknown songwriter?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From KCRW, this is Lost Notes. |
| 0:04.7 | Hey friends, I'm Solomon Giorgio, and my knowledge of country music begins and ends with |
| 0:10.2 | achy, breaky heart. |
| 0:11.9 | Anyway, I know a lot more about country now, because I spend a little time with reporter Peter |
| 0:17.3 | Gilstrap. |
| 0:18.6 | Peter told me about one of his favorite songwriters. Who is Glenn Shirley? |
| 0:23.9 | He was a lifelong criminal. He was locked up for most of his adult life. Every major prison |
| 0:31.0 | that California has, he bunked in, Soul Dad, Folsom, San Quentin. Why do you think people don't |
| 0:37.0 | know about him? |
| 0:38.1 | You mean, yet? |
| 0:39.3 | I'm not going to give away what happened to him, |
| 0:41.8 | but he left the music business |
| 0:44.0 | in a very final way in the 1970s. |
| 0:47.8 | What do you think Johnny Cash saw in Glenn Shirley? |
| 0:50.9 | Well, I think Johnny saw himself in Glenn Shirley in many ways. |
| 0:55.5 | From KCRW, this is Lost Notes. |
| 1:02.9 | Hello, I'm Johnny Cash. |
| 1:15.9 | It's a January morning in 1968. |
| 1:22.2 | Johnny Cash is on stage in front of a thousand inmates in mess hall number two at Folsom Prison. |
| 1:25.0 | As always, Johnny's dressed in black. |
| 1:29.0 | He's standing tall with his Martin acoustic under harsh fluorescent lights, |
| 1:31.6 | veiled by the smoke from hundreds of cigarettes. |
... |
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