The Ballad Of Greystone Chapel.

I was watching a documentary series recently about American Country Music. One episode featured Johnny Cash. In the late 1960’s Johnny Cash was rebuilding his life and career after years of drug abuse. June Carter refused to marry him unless he got clean. When he had sorted himself out Johnny wanted to give something back and began playing concerts in prisons because he felt lucky not to have been jailed himself. On January 13^th, 1968 he was due to play in Folsom Prison. Johnny was visited the night before the concert by Floyd Gressett, a clergyman who had been visiting Folsom to see one of his former parishioners called Earl Green who was serving a life sentence for killing someone with a baseball bat. Green had given Gressett a tape recording of a song by an inmate friend called Glen Sherley who was serving five to life for armed robbery. The song was called Greystone Chapel. It is the name of the chapel within the walls of Folsom Prison.

Johnny Cash listened to the song and instantly loved it and spent the entire evening learning and rehearsing it. The following night he closed the show with Greystone Chapel and arranged for Glen Sherley to be sitting in the front row. After the show Glen was taken backstage to meet Johnny who promised to send him a royalties contract to sign. The song appeared on the album Johnny Cash, Live At Folsom Prison which was a huge success. Johnny also began petitioning the Governor of California Ronald Reagan to release Glen Sherley.

Watching the documentary made me curious about Glen Sherley. I wanted to find out more about him and what became of him. I looked on eBay and found he had made an album in 1971 Live At Vacaville, California. He had been transferred there from Folsom and performed to 800 of his fellow inmates. I ordered the CD album which arrived a few days ago. It contains a nice booklet with a biography of Glen Sherley. He was born in 1936 and drifted into petty crime from a young age. He had arrived at Folsom after robbing an ice cream company of $28 using a toy gun. In prison his mentor was a former Western Swing star by the name of Spade Cooley. He was a nasty piece of work from all accounts. Cooley had battered his wife to death in front of his daughter, but apparently Cooley was known to be a positive influence on Sherley and helped him develop his music. Glen wrote a song called Portrait Of My Woman which became the title song of an album by Eddy Arnold. Glen’s record company wanted him released at the same time as his album. With the help of Billy Graham and Johnny & June he was finally paroled on March 7^th, 1971 and flew to Nashville with the Cash family.

Things went well at first. Glen played support slots with Cash and even did another prison date with Linda Ronstadt. However, members of Johnny Cash’s band and entourage soon began to be concerned about Glen’s pathological behaviour and casual threats of violence. He could not handle life outside prison and did not know how to behave after being institutionalised. Johnny regretfully had to dismiss him from the tour. Unable to handle fame, Glen quickly faded into obscurity. His drinking and drug abuse got out of hand and he was estranged from his wife and children. In May 1978 while high on drugs he shot a man and went into hiding. Unable to face going back to prison Glen Sherley took his own life at the young age of 42. Johnny Cash paid for the funeral.

I enjoyed listening to his album. Greystone Chapel is my favourite track. I looked on YouTube to see if there was any footage of Glen singing the song, and there was. I was shocked at his appearance though. He was only 33 but looked decades older. The years of prison were written all over his face. You can see that video on this blog page if you want. Other songs I liked are Looking Back In Anger, If This Prison Yard Could Talk and Measure Of A Man. There is humour as well in Pick A Bouquet. It is a shame he had such a tragic life and could not adjust to freedom. I remember when Johnny Cash played the part of a murderer in the TV show Colombo. When Colombo finally arrested him, he said to Johnny Cash, “Anyone who can sing like you can’t be all bad”. I think the same thing applies to Glen Sherley.