Idolator

This year marks four decades since Johnny Cash infamously threw down for the inmates of Folsom Prison in California, and Jonathan Holif, who was arranging a tribute concert to mark the occasion, featuring "the country singer's music and drummer W.S. 'Fluke' Holland, one of his original backup musicians," is now crying over prison officials suddenly cancelling the show thanks to petty wrangling "over filming rights, media access and security." (Well, the "security" part probably isn't so petty.)

Oscar Hidalgo, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in Sacramento, said Holiff had demanded film rights to the event.

The promoters "said that if we allowed access to the media, the band would not play," Hidalgo said. "This is a prison. We're dealing with inmates, and you don't un-ring the bell with them. Our security instincts took over. We didn't want an incident. We were taking no chances."

He said the promoters also demanded exclusive rights over the event's filming. "No one gets exclusive rights in a state prison," he said.

"We're not renting out an auditorium here. If this is truly a tribute to Johnny Cash, why not let the media witness that tribute?"

A guess, but maybe because you can't make as much revenue off an "exclusive" event designed "to be streamed worldwide over the Internet" if you've got someone else there streaming it alongside of you? (And the DVDs six months down the road. Don't forget the DVDs.) Holif, for his part, alludes to the reason for the cancellation being more along the lines of political toes being stepped on. "Someone's ego in Sacramento has been bruised. And he basically carries enough weight to cancel the show." But won't someone think of the prisoners?

Joe Avila, executive director of Prison Fellowship Ministries, which had helped underwrite the event, said Cash fans and the inmates themselves were losing out.
"The whole Johnny Cash story is one of redemption," he said. "Johnny was wild at heart, just like these men. But just like him, they can change. They can walk the line.

Ah, now that's good, corny soundbite.

Folsom Prison's Cash Anniversary Show Axed [LA Times]