On This Day in 1969, Johnny Cash Was in the Middle of His Longest Run at No. 1 With a Monumental Album

On this day in 1969. Johnny Cash was at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart with At San Quentin. It was his second live album recorded behind the walls of a prison and became a landmark album for Cash. It was his only album to top the Billboard 200 in his lifetime and produced his sole top 10 hit on the Hot 100.

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While Cash was never incarcerated, he has a long connection to the prison system. “Folsom Prison Blues” was his first top 10 hit. At Folsom Prison was a major hit, and At San Quentin was the most successful album he ever released.

[RELATED: On This Day in 1969, Johnny Cash Hit No. 1 With the Legendary Tale of a Young Man Seeking Revenge on His Absent Father]

More than a decade before he recorded the monumental live album, Cash played his first prison concert behind the walls of San Quentin. That New Year’s Day show in 1958 famously inspired Merle Haggard, who was an inmate at the time, to pursue a career as a country singer. So, when it came time to record his second live album, he was on familiar ground.

Johnny Cash Makes History with At San Quentin

While some will say that At Folsom Prison is a better album, At San Quentin was by far more successful. It went to No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart for 20 consecutive weeks. It also topped the Billboard 200 for four weeks.

It was Johnny Cash’s first album to top the all-genre chart and the last to do so while he was alive. The posthumously released American V: A Hundred Highways was his only other album to reach the top of the survey. It did so for one week in 2006.

At San Quentin also captured the first-ever live performance of the Shel Silverstein-penned classic “A Boy Named Sue.” It topped the Hot Country Songs chart for 5 weeks and the Adult Contemporary chart for 2 weeks. It was also his only top 10 hit on the Hot 100, peaking at No. 2 on the all-genre tally.

The legendary photo of an angry Johnny Cash also came from the At San Quentin concert. As the story goes, the Granada TV crew was blocking Cash’s view from the stage. When they refused to move so he could better see the audience, he flipped them the bird, and Jim Marshall snapped the now-iconic photo.

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