A trip to my hometown over the Christmas holidays brought an unexpected gem to my collection which I had heard of but never saw before. While leafing through a crate of random country albums I came across a copy of one of the rawest and most authentic outlaw country albums of all time- Glen Sherley’s 1972 album “Live at Vacaville, California.” The first and only album released by Glen Sherley, the album was never a hit, nor has it become a hallmark of the country music canon. In fact, with its drab cover design, the album could easily be dismissed by record collectors who don’t know what it is. As a result, Glen Sherley’s album is a true buried gem.
Look on-line and you’ll find a lot of people who remember Glen Sherley. I was pleased to see so many well written articles by music fans and journalists chronicling his story. But what I noticed is that while people write a lot about Sherley’s failures, they don’t often write about his actual music. No wonder I had never heard any of his recordings until I found this album. His recordings just don’t get played nor have they entered the popular soundscape. But after a number of deep listens I came to the conclusion that Glen Sherley was a lot more than a sad footnote in country music history. He was a talented singer-songwriter with a very unique life perspective. But, as in the case of many creative souls, the things that made Glen unique manifested the demons that dragged him down.
While the name Glen Sherley may not spark immediate recognition, it might sound vaguely familiar. Despite the obscurity of his album, Glen still managed to become a part of Nashville lore when he dramatically made his public debut on Johnny Cash’s groundbreaking 1968 album “At Folsom Prison.” One of the most important albums in the history of music, Glen was the convict that Cash calls out by name before performing the album’s final song, “Greystone Chapel”:
“This next song was written by a man right here in Folsom Prison, and last night was the first time I sung this song. Anyways, this song was written by our friend Glen Sherley. I hope we do your song justice Glen. We’re going to do our best.”
That introduction could have been enough to immortalize Glen into country music history but beyond that moment there is a bigger story of a hopeless man who was given a chance at redemption, only to have it end in tragedy.
So just who was Glen Sherley, and how did he end up in Folsom? Born in 1936, Glen was the youngest child of poor dirt farmers from Oklahoma who relocated to California during the “dust bowl migration” of the great depression. Glen’s family were honest, hard-working people who worked the cotton and the potato fields of the Salinas Valley. While his older siblings were kept home to work, Glen’s parents started him out to school in the hopes he might have better opportunities than they had. But despite the hard-working ethics of his family, Glen had a wildness in him that couldn’t be contained. Glen liked to drink, he liked to fight and he experimented with drugs, and by the time he was a teenager he was already running with a rough crowd and getting in trouble with the law. Often Glen’s crimes were not well thought out and usually committed while under the influence of liquor and drugs. His initial problems with the law began as a juvenile offender, and by the time he was in his twenties; despite having a wife and a young family at home, he couldn’t stay out of trouble. After being arrested several times for committing poorly thought-out armed robberies, Glen finally attempted to rob a bank which landed him in prison. Initially held at the prison in Soledad, CA, Glen was transferred to San Quetin and eventually Folsom Prison.
One of the most notorious maximum-security facilities in the US, Folsom had a reputation of holding the meanest prisoners and most desperate men, and if what we can take from his lyrical content, Glen saw a lot of the hard knocks of prison life. There is little information on what kind of prisoner Glen actually was, but what we do know is that while in prison Glen took to music. “You got to do something in prison or go insane,” Glen said in an interview with ABC News in 1971. “You can do it gambling, you can do it hustling, you can do it shooting narcotics or taking pills, but you’ve got to have something going to let you face that next day.” Having picked up a little bit of guitar during his life on the outside, Glen found he had a talent at writing introspective verses about life within the prison system, the experiences of the men around him, and about the people and things that he missed on the outside.
At Folsom Glen formed a friendship with another convict named Earl Green. A convicted killer who turned to religion on the inside, Earl also had a strong interest in music and eventually became one of the primary djs at Folsom’s in-house radio station. The two men played guitar together, and Earl was highly impressed with Glen’s original compositions and encouraged him to try to sell some of them. But Glen didn’t have the same faith in his writing as his pal and shrugged the idea off. Still, Earl used the advantages that he had working in the radio station, which included recording equipment, to allow Glen to record original material on reel-to-reel tapes that his older sister provided him with during her visits to see him.
It was Earl Green who would eventually be responsible for getting Johnny Cash to come to Folsom Prison. Cash began his radical tradition of playing in prisons in the late 1950’s not long after releasing his 1955 hit “Folsom Prison Blues.” Inspired after watching the 1951 film “Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison,” Cash’s empathy towards the men doing time made him a favorite amongst the prison population, and after receiving letters from incarcerated fans detailing their experiences, Cash wanted to bring his music to the men behind bars. His first prison concert was in 1957 at the Huntsville State Prison, and a year later he got more notoriety when he performed at San Quentin, where another future outlaw country legend, Merle Haggard, who was also in prison for armed robbery, watched him from the audience.
Around 1965 Earl Green befriended a preacher, Reverend Floyd Gressett, who ministered to the Folsom inmates. Bonding over music, Reverend Grossett had mentioned to Earl that Johnny Cash would sometimes attend the small nondenominational church that he preached at in Ventura. Having just kicked his drug habit, Cash had recommitted himself to religion but was at a low point in his career. A fan of Johnny Cash, it was Earl which made the suggestion to Reverends Gressett that Cash should come and play Folsom, especially considering the obvious connection with “Folsom Prison Blues.” Well, when he next saw Cash, Reverend Grossett floated the idea by him. Although it had been a while since he had done a prison concert, Cash thought it was time for him to get back behind the prison walls. Cash did his first concert at Folsom in November 1966 with no fanfare nor publicity. Welcomed by the men at Folsom as if he were one of their own, Cash and the prisoners created a symbiotic relationship filled with both laughter and emotion. It is unclear if Glen Sherley was at that performance or not, but Earl Green worked as the soundman for the event, becoming a lifelong friend of Johnny Cash’s upon his eventual release.
The concert was such a massive success that it inspired Cash to create the Folsom Prison album. Cash knew that a prison-based concert, which was still deemed controversial by the public, had never been recorded and, having never made a live album before, he knew that capturing that unique relationship he had with the men at Folsom could create a dynamic and highly original product. It took a while for the details to be ironed out, but Cash’s next concert was scheduled for January 13, 1968.
Earl Green was not at the second show because he had been transferred to the lower security prison in Vacaville, but during the planning process for the second concert he had encouraged Glen to write a song in johnny Cash’s style and, knowing of Cash’s new found interest in religion, suggested a song about the Greystone Chapel. A granite rock house built within Folsom in 1903, the church held religious services for both Catholic and Protestant inmates and became an important religious hub for men looking for comfort and salvation. Glen took the challenge and weaved a poetic piece that combined the gritty experience of life in prison with the sanctuary and ministry in the chapel:
“There’s a grey stone chapel here at Folsom
A house of worship in this den of sin
You wouldn’t think that God had a place here at Folsom
But he saved the soul of many lost men
Now this grey stone chapel here at Folsom
Stands a hundred years old made of granite rock
It takes a ring of keys to move here at Folsom
But the door to the house of God is never locked,
Inside the walls of prison my body may be
But my Lord has set my soul free
There are men here that don’t ever worship
There are men here who scoff at the ones who pray
But I’ve got down on my knees in that grey stone chapel
And I’ve thanked the Lord for helping me each day
Now this grey stone chapel here at Folsom
It has a touch of God’s hand on every stone
It’s a flower of light in a field of darkness
And it’s given me the strength to carry on.”
Lore has it that Earl recorded Glen performing the song without his knowledge and then gave the tape to Reverend Grosaett. On the night before the concert at Folsom, Grossett visited Cash at the nearby hotel that he and his entourage were staying in and played him the tape. Cash saw the value in the song, especially in how it had a tangible emotional, and potentially spiritual, connection to the Folom Prison community, and took to learning the song immediately so he could perform it the next day at the show. Glen was seated in the front row for Cash’s performance and was completely unaware of what was to come. As Cash introduced Glen, he reached out to shake the hand of the shocked prisoner. Photographers captured the moment from two angles, one from the audience and another from the stage, and Glen’s ear to ear smile can be seen in the version from behind Johnny Cash.
After the concert was over, Cash met with Glen and the two of them talked about music and prison and tough times. In the short time they spent together, Cash felt an immediate bond with Glen. Both had been sons of poor farmers and had struggled with substance abuse. Cash could recognize the same sense of darkness that he too had once held in his own heart before he allowed faith to calm him down. In the weeks that followed, Cash couldn’t get Glen out of his mind. “At Folsom Prison” was released in May 1968 and not only revitalized Johnny Cash’s career but became one of the most important albums in the history of music. Back on top of his game, Cash believed he had been given a second chance, thus putting him in a position where he too could give someone a similar second chance – his new friend Glen Sherley.
Glen still had a few years left in his sentence, but Cash went to work opening doors for him on the outside. Cash paid a visit to Ronald Regan, who was at that time the governor of California, as well as Reverend Billy Graham, and through their help was able to get Glen transferred out of Folsom and to the minimum-security prison in Vacaville. Meanwhile, he began to talk Glen up to his Nashville connections and got some of his songs sold to established artists. The most notable artist to pick up one of Glen’s songs was Eddy Arnold, who had a minor hit in 1971 with Glen’s “Portrait of my Woman,” which landed at #26 on the US Country Billboard charts. But even more significantly, Johnny Cash convinced Nashville record producers Brad McCuen and Harry E. Pratt to sign Glen to their newly formed Mega Records. With Cash’s own production company, House of Cash, overseeing the project, Mega Records put plans in motion for the creation of Glen’s debut album despite the fact that Glen still had another year behind bars.
In a lot of ways Glen’s debut album may seem like a concept album, but in actuality its more of a product of Glen’s own circumstances. Recorded at the end of 1970 “Folsom Prison style” as a concert in front of an audience of prisoners, the album featured the first recordings of Glen performing his own songs that the public would hear. Filled with songs about criminals, convicts and life in prison, it needs to be kept in mind that this had been Glen’s only reality for the past decade and reflected the real-life experiences and culture of not only Glen, but the majority of the people that he knew. As a result, song’s like “Look Back at Anger,” “If This Prison Yard Could Talk” and “FBI Top Ten” have an authenticity to them that only a song writer with Glen’s unique perspective could deliver. Unlike other “outlaw” songs like “I Fought the Law (and the Law Won)” and “Indiana Wants Me,” despite how good they were, Glen’s songs had more guts and grit. But on his album Glen proved that he wasn’t just a one note songwriter by producing a heartful song about his mother, “Mama Had Country Soul,” and his own rendition of “A Portrait of My Woman” had a softer and more genuine quality than Eddy Arnold’s version. Of course, Glen performed “Greystone Chapel,” which had become his hallmark, and he introduced a song he had written about Johnny Cash, “Measure of a Man,” which was about dignity and masculinity. The end result was a solid country album, full of well written and performed material, and was a shining testament that Glen Sherley was more than just Johnny Cash’s pet project or charity case. Glen Sherley was a good performer, could connect to an audience and was an intelligent introspective songwriter. Maybe…. just maybe…. Glen Sherley was more than just Johnny Cash’s hype. There really may have been a true Nashville superstar behind those prison walls. Via Johnny Cash’s influence, there was a lot of anticipation in Nashville for Glen Sherley to be released.
Glen Sherley walked out of Vacaville a free man in March 1971 with Johnny Cash and June Carter waiting for him at the prison gates. Setting him up in Nashville, Cash offered Glen a job on his touring crew, which included an opportunity to play as a supporting performer at all of his shows. Glen’s release also got tons of press from major media, which helped promote his album when it was released months later. “Live at Vacaville, California” only rose as high as the #63 position on the Billboard sales charts, and although the album’s single, “Look Back in Anger,” got some attention, it didn’t become a hit. However, Glen quickly became a valued member of Cash’s entourage, especially in regard to the curiosity surrounding him. People loved the story of Cash’s discovery in prison, and how he found redemption and fame on the outside via country music.
And for a moment in time, that seemed to be the reality. In 1972 Glenn got remarried with a lavish wedding hosted on the Cash estate with Johnny himself stepping in as best man. Glen was reunited with his teenage daughters, who were just small children when he was incarcerated, and formed relationships with them for the first time. But most of all, Glen got to travel with Johnny Cash and friends, making music from coast to coast.
Cash even produce a television special to spotlight Glen’s story and music, which aired on television for the first time in April 1974. Called “A Flower Out of Place,” the special consisted of a prison concert held at the Tennessee State Penitentiary, and featured Glen hosting special guests Roy Clark, Linda Ronstandt, comedian Foster Brooks and, of course, Johnny Cash. Dressed in an outfit that looked like he was still wearing prison grays, Glen proved himself to be a likeable master of ceremonies. However, for a special that was supposed to highlight his music and talent, the program failed by giving Glen the least amount of performance time in the show. In all, Glen only performed four times, including doing a number with Johnny Cash who, of course, got the longest performance time.
But despite the fairy tale narrative that the Nashville press was weaving about Glen Sherley in real time, things weren’t going so well behind the scenes. Although he may have been released from prison, the years behind bars had left Glen a damaged man who had trouble coping with the real world and relating to people who had never known incarceration. Going into dark depressions, Glen would often relay to others that he felt isolated, misunderstood and disconnected from people, and that his real friends and true community were still existing as shadows in prisons throughout California. Although said that he could come off beimg humble and friendly, Glen didn’t know how to play the celebrity game, Glen didn’t like people he considered phonies or weak, didn’t care what hands to shake and wasn’t always interested in playing nice.
Glen’s worst enemy would be his addictive personality, especially when it came to amphetamines. Although clean when he got out of prison, after a while Glen was back on the pills, which not only increased his paranoia and depression, but also brought a meanness out in him. While drugs were not welcomed on Cash’s tours, especially considering his own struggle with addiction and the overall religious undertones within his operation, the company made an attempt to give Glen some space to deal with his issues, often looking away from his obvious unravelling. But as Glen’s behaviour became more erratic and his dependability began to suffer, it was only time before things would hit a wall.
That moment came in 1976 when Marshall Grant, Johnny Cash’s long time bass player and road manager, took Glen aside to have a solid talk with him about his future in Cash’s company. After a number of missed flights and performance no shows, Grant told Glen that he needed to pull things together, suggesting that he pay stricter attention to the group’s itinerary. A basic request given by a seasoned road manager to any performer, Grant was unprepared for Glen’s response.
According to Grant in an interview for Rolling Stone, Glen looked coldly at the road manger and replied “I love you like a brother, but you know what I would really like to do to you?…What I would really like to do is get a butcher knife, and I would like to start cutting you all to hell. I’d like to drain every drop of blood in your body out on that floor.’”
Glen’s response and the tone he delivered it chilled Marshall Grant to the bone, and instead of passing it off as nothing more than an idle threat, he had to bring it to the boss. “John, it’s over. It’s just over,” Grant retold in the Rolling Stone interview. “We can’t have Glen up here because he’s made it very, very clear what he wants to do to me. If he made it clear to me, he’ll do it to you. He’ll do it to everybody on this band.”
Although he hated to admit it, Johnny Cash was not a stupid man, and he could recognize that Glen was unraveling and was becoming a potential powder keg to his clean cut and well-oiled operation. Cash knew he had to cut Glen loose and quietly terminated him from his operations. Exactly what he said, or how he did it, was never revealed to anyone, and Cash never publicly, and rarely privately, spoke about Glen after they parted ways. Furthermore, it was done without any publicity, giving Glen the opportunity to slip away quietly without attention or press in hopes that on his own he might be able to eventually clean up his act and find some sort of peace.
For the next few years Glen lived off the grid and out of the public eye. Separated from his second wife and estranged from his kids, Glen’s dependency on drugs and alcohol worsened, and soon he was living a shadow existence of the life that Johnny Cash had tried to give him. Drifting across the West Coast in the cab of his truck for a while, Glen spent all of his money but eventually secured employment at a large cattle farm near Salinas where he worked at feeding approximately ten thousand cows daily.
The beginning of the end came on May 9, 1978. I can’t find any solid details on exactly what happened. It may be possible that nobody really knows. What we do know is that while high on drugs Glen got in a dispute with another man prompting him to pull out a gun and shoot his rival in the head. I can’t find any information on who the man was, or what prompted Glen’s extreme actions, but what is well documented is that a man was dead, and Glen went on the run.
A few days after the shooting, a desperate Sherley made a phone call to his oldest daughter, Ronda. As she pleaded with her father to give himself up, Glen told Ronda that he couldn’t face going back to prison. Two days later Glen’s older brother found him dead from a self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head. There seems to be some discrepancy to where he was actually found. Popular lore says that Glen was found in the cab of his truck, where it was reported he was living. The official police report says that Glen was found inside a RV type trailer in which he and his brother had been living together. Another version of the story says that Glen shot himself on the porch of his brother’s house, in which he had been hiding out for the two days contemplating his next move. Whatever the case, it really didn’t matter in the end. May 11, 1968, was the end of the line for Glen Sherley, whose sad story had ended in an act of desperation. Although he looked much older, Glen was only 42 years old.
When Johnny Cash learnt of Glen Sherley’s death it obviously cut him deeply. Although he never spoke publicly about Glen’s tragedy, people close to him said that it tortured Cash, who struggled with the question of if he had done enough. Cash reached out to Glen’s family and paid for his funeral, and he was put to rest in a small country cemetery in Shafter, CA. On the marker an inscription reads “He searched for truth and found it in the father.”
It has been said that the memory of Glen Sherley haunted Johnny Cash for the rest of his life. Cash did all he could to try to save Glen, going out on a limb for him to have every opportunity in the world. However, all the gifts and chances that Cash could give were not enough to penetrate the darkness and desperation that lived within Glen’s soul. But no matter how much you give one person, in the long run it is up to them to take those opportunities and forge the life they want with it. You can lead a thirsty man to water, but it’s up to that man to actually drink it. Johnny Cash did good by Glen Sherley, but something in Glen was so broken that he just couldn’t put himself back together. In the end, Glen was the architect of his own fate,
Glen’s story is one that continues to be told over and over again, and he is a major part of the lore and legend of Johnny Cash. But what should be rediscovered Is Glen’s actual recordings, and the incredible document of his talent captured on “Live at Vacaville, CA.” Although we only have the one album, a few obscure singles and a few additional prison tapes that were released by Glen’s family to the public in 2017, his voice and his music is some of the hardest hitting and most honest country music produced in the 1970’s. Johnny Cash was right. There really was something special about Glen Sherley, and perhaps at another time and place or under different circumstances he could have been one of the all-time legends of country music.
