The applause track on Johnny Cash’s,
Live at Folsom Prison, is entirely independent of the music tracks. The applause track—assumed to be a recording of Folsom inmates—undulates, is pulled out and put in wherever the editor or producer sees fit. At times, these placements are so conspicuous that they are laughable, a laugh track. They always occur where expected, expected of. Drugs, murder, death, applause. This recording is not a documentary of a performance that took place in a prison, not entirely; this recording is a created document. Rather than a recorded event,
Live at Folsom Prison is a recording-event. This is not a prison performance; it has been edited, cut, polished, created in a studio and packaged for consumption. The contemporary consumer still expects what the first consumer expected forty years ago: drugs, murder, death, applause.
The United States has the world’s most defective prison system. California has the most defective prison system in the United States. California’s entire prison system is in federal receivership, and many of its institutions are on watch-lists for human rights violations; this is true. “All prisoners are vicious psychopaths,” one says;
Live at Folsom Prison is the evidence.
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