Johnny Cash, A Concert: Behind Prison Walls
December 2003 Reviewed by: Doug Schneider Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

The dark, somber cover of Johnny Cash, A Concert: Behind Prison Walls is befitting for the "Man in Black," but it’s in stark contrast to the colorful, sometimes goofy-looking concert contained on the DVD inside.

In 1976, well-known American country-music artist Johnny Cash, along with Linda Rondstadt, Roy Clark, and Foster Brooks, put on a concert at Tennessee State Prison that was broadcast nationwide. It sounds like serious, gritty stuff, being in a prison and all, but when the opening track, "Folsom Prison Blues," plays, you quickly realize that it’s lighthearted, suitable-for-primetime entertainment and not something out of Oz. The prisoners wear their striped outfits, but they are better behaved than an average crowd in a movie theater today, and the visual style is pure ‘70s sleaze. Sonny and Cher or Donnie and Marie wouldn’t look out of place here.

The concert lasts a scant 50 minutes. Cash opens and closes, while the other performers are sprinkled between. Roy Clark’s music and Foster Brooks’ bad jokes never appealed to me, and what’s contained here did nothing to change my opinion, but I watched Cash and Rondstadt with quite a bit more interest. While Cash is the concert headliner -- and the disc is marketed with a cover photo that implies he’s pretty much the show -- it’s Rondstadt who steals it away. In my opinion, her "Desperado," "You’re No Good," "Love Has No Pride," and "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" are the highlights of the concert. None of the Cash tracks really capture him at his best or show why he became an icon of country music.

The DVD packaging is about as basic as it comes. There’s not even a booklet inside -- only a thin, single-sided sheet with the same cover photo along with a track listing. The DVD has chapter selection and audio setup, but not a single thing more. Bare bones is the only way to describe it.

Both Dolby Digital 5.1 and stereo tracks are included, but neither set sounds very good. They are thin, grainy, tinny, and devoid of real frequency extension. In fact, they both sound just like ‘70s TV, which probably shouldn’t be all that much of a surprise. The stereo mix has poor separation and no sense of depth or dimensionality, and while the surround mix does have a sense of spaciousness, the front stage is still collapsed to a space essentially right at the TV screen. I suspect that almost 30 years ago the producers didn’t anticipate that people would be listening to this concert at home with high-resolution surround-sound systems.

In comparison, the video quality is a whole lot better, seemingly taken from well-archived videotape. It is punchy, bright, and vibrant, with visual style that’s indicative of that disco-dominated decade. It’s not reference-caliber, but it’s reasonable.

I suspect A Concert: Behind Prison Walls may be of interest to diehard Cash or Rondstadt fans, or perhaps it will have some sort of sentimental value for those who saw the original airing and want it as some sort of keepsake, but it would be unfortunate if someone picked it up in order to learn more about Johnny Cash and didn’t explore his music further. This is Cash at a point in time, more or less a novelty act for primetime TV, but nothing on this DVD shows why the Man in Black was so great.

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