Tennessee Ernie Ford
 Six
years before Johnny Cash recorded his
hugely influential live album within the walls of San Quentin
prison, western balladeer Ford gave angelic voice to killers,
robbers and all manner of low-life on the album, We Gather
Together (1963), credited to Tennessee Ernie Ford with The
San Quentin Prison Choir.
The idea came about after Ford - best known for 50's
chart-toppers Sixteen Tons and The Ballad Of Davy
Crockett, received fan mail from an inmate who claimed his
biggest regret at being incarcerated was that he would miss going
to the crooner's concerts.
The letter also revealed that some of the faith-driven lags
often sang some of the star's own hits in rehearsals.
Ford lobbied the prison authorities to allow the record to
happen, but it took some time to get the go-ahead, as at first
there were suspicions that the singer was an unwitting
player in an elaborate escape plot!
When the project eventually received the green light, the
prisoners themselves, plus a small handful of warder choristers,
were invited to select the hymns, with most numbers chosen being
songs of redemption: Are Ye Able Said The Master, Somebody
Did A Golden Deed, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.
Money from sales of the LP went towards post-release
rehabilitation programmes (not much use to the lifers), government
funding for which was all but non-existent in the early 60s.
Nearly three decades later, Grateful
Dead drummer Mickey Hart was so moved on hearing the choir
while visiting a friend behind the 22-foot-high walls that he
financed and produced a second album of jailbird testifying, He's
All I Need (1992).
Ernie Ford died on 17 October 1991 - 36 years to the day after
the release of his biggest hit, Sixteen Tons.
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