On This Day in 1969, Johnny Cash Was at No. 1 With the First Album He Recorded After Luther Perkins Died
On 14 October 1969, Johnny Cash’s *At San Quentin* was at the top of the country chart, beginning a 20-week run. The live album introduced “A Boy Named Sue”, earned multiple awards and marked Cash’s first recording after the death of his longtime guitarist and friend Luther Perkins.
Perkins had helped shape Cash’s distinctive sound as a founding member of the Tennessee Two. For the February 1969 prison concert, new guitarist Bob Wooten, who had taught himself to play in Perkins’s style, shared guitar duties with Carl Perkins. Granada Television filmed the show for British broadcast, but its crew’s directions and camera positions frustrated Cash; he later said the famous photo of him giving the finger was taken after a camera operator ignored his request to move.
- *At San Quentin* began a 20-week run at No. 1 on the country chart.
- It was Johnny Cash’s first recording after Luther Perkins died.
- Cash said the famous gesture photo followed a camera crew dispute.
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Johnny Cash was an American country singer whose spare, rhythmic sound helped make him one of the genre’s best-known performers. Guitarist Luther Perkins was a founding member of Cash’s backing group, the Tennessee Two, and his playing was central to that sound. Perkins died in 1968.
In February 1969, Cash performed at California’s San Quentin State Prison. Bob Wooten, who had learned to play in Perkins’s style, joined guitarist Carl Perkins for the concert. Granada Television filmed the show for British audiences, and tensions over the crew’s cameras became part of the story behind a widely published photograph of Cash.