Truth Behind Johnny Cash’s ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ Revealed

"I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die."

It's one of the most recognizable song lyrics in popular music -- an always chilling moment from 'Folsom Prison Blues,' written and performed by Johnny Cash. Naturally, few recordings of the song have elicited more goosebumps than the live version on Cash's landmark 1968 album, 'At Folsom Prison.'

The album was recently reissued in a three-disc boxed set, with a documentary written by author Michael Streissguth, who discovered that the hoots, hollers and whistles from more than 1,000 inmates at that very prison immortalized in song weren't all authentic.

The Denver Post reports that Streissguth made the surprising discovery while researching his 2004 book, 'Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece.' While in the studio listening to master tapes of the recording, Streissguth was shocked to hear none of the crowd noise that was part of the finished recording. He later learned that the album's producer, Bob Johnston, had actually spliced in the noise that's heard at that memorable moment.

"It floored me," Streissguth says. "I had bought into the drama and authenticity of that moment along with everyone else."

In spite of the creative license taken with the track, the legendary album's influence hasn't diminished.

"You can feel the electricity and the excitement in that room," says Travis Tritt. "For me, that album is a Live Performance 101 class. The crowd reaction was amazing. Johnny Cash was speaking their language on that cafeteria stage. Even the real bad guys in that hall were with him."

And although it could have been fixed for the 2008 reissue, that thunderous piece of aural history remains intact, Streissguth says. As Legacy A&R coordinator John Jackson told him, "It's such an iconic moment, we couldn't leave it out."