From Folsom Prison to The Harlem Square Club: The Escapism of Live Albums

Something about live albums captures a moment in time like studio recordings just don’t. In a similar way to candid film photography or reading old handwritten letters, live albums offer some kind of instantaneous escapism. They bring you into the very time they were recorded, whether it was last year at a concert you attended or five decades ago on the other side of the world. I know live albums aren’t always as popular, and I can understand why, they’re inevitably never going to be as clean cut as the studio recording and I guess some people don’t like hearing a screaming crowd in the background – but sometimes they bring an entirely new element to a listening experience, or might be what makes that very album so special.

              Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison, probably one of my favourite albums of all time. It’s not exactly a “typical” live album in the sense of it being recorded on a world tour stop, it’s a lot more than that. It wouldn’t be album it is if it wasn’t for its very format. It’s an album that was recorded with a purpose because the performance had a purpose – one of humility, humanity, and recognising the importance of bringing music into lives. There isn’t any kind of sense of hierarchy that you might expect when a country music star is performing for prisoners, instead there’s an equality and shared experience truly captured on the album. From his very first ‘Hello, I’m Johnny Cash’ (that if you don’t read in his voice as deep as a coal mine, you’re obviously not listening to enough Cash) to having June join him to sing ‘Jackson’, there’s a sense of escapism that he brought to that hall that isn’t in anyway lost on the live recording, it’s a long-lasting escapism. Not one that ignored where he was like some kind of charity event, but one that acknowledged it so well you would think Cash was facing a ten-year long sentence too.

              There are a lot of things about Johnny Cash to love, but I think him singing ‘Greystone Chapel’, a song written by one of the prisoners, Glen Sherley, is one anecdote that I love the most. He heard it once, stayed up that night to learn it, and surprised the songwriter with a complete and moving performance of it the next day. Cash really was a man of the people; he never spent time in jail, he saw the inside of a prison cell a couple times for sure, and he got those mug shots, but didn’t serve time. His ability to make these human connections is what makes this album just so good: through his songs and his everyday-man personality there is no disconnect whatsoever between the star and the inmates. Whether it was through humour like on the panic inducing ‘25 Minutes To Go’ or despair and emotional sincerity on ‘Dark as the Dungeon’, the album captured how that unlikely audience wholeheartedly embraced The Man in Black and his wise words.

Carole King and James Taylor (Live at the Troubadour), two of my favourite people returning to the place that formed some of the best on the California music scene, a place that must have some kind of magic in the walls or in the whiskey. As the pair are joined by some of their original session musicians and touring partners, including the great Danny Kortchmar, their performances are relaxed and comfortable. For those troubadours and for the listener, especially for someone whose family’s regular kitchen album is Tapestry and that has too many James Taylor records, something about this live album feels quite a lot like home.

              I recently picked up a copy of Glen Campbell Live, a recording from a fourth of July concert in New Jersey on vinyl, he’s accompanied by a full orchestra and although I love Campbell most when it’s just him and his severely underappreciated guitar skills, something about this was special. It wasn’t just the sweeping strings on Gentle On My Mind, it was all of sudden putting that needle down and having his southern accent fill my living room in the UK as he makes jokes with his audience. Similarly, when I put on the copy of John Denver Live in London that I have, his voice is almost too clear – he’s bringing a crystal blue Rocky Mountain sky to wherever that record is spinning. And, in all honesty, there’s something a little extra special about listening to a live album from someone no longer with us.

              When Ray Charles joins Aretha Franklin on ‘Spirit in the Dark’ on her Live At Fillmore West album, it’s almost nine minutes of pure soul joy. Gospel style call and response between Charles, Franklin and the audience is the perfect example of Franklin’s desire, and remarkable ability, to synthesise faith with R&B and pop. This one’s interesting in a music and cultural history sense too (if you find that interesting, like I do). Recorded in San Francisco, Franklin was urged by the album’s producer to include some covers to appeal to the state’s hippie (and largely white) audience. So, Franklin is singing her incomparable heart out on ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, ‘Eleanor Rigby’, and even a Stephen Stills hit whilst making those songs entirely her own. Live albums capture historical moments too.

‘Bring It On Home To Me’ from Sam Cooke on his Live At The Harlem Square Club album, recorded the year before his infamous – but arguably dulled down and too polished - Live From The Copa album, is genuinely exceptional. An over two-minute-long intro (only on a live album) before that rhythm guitar kicks in with the rest of the band and his voice steps up to the level of beauty that Cooke will be immortally remembered for. I can’t mention this one without acknowledging the follow up track ‘Nothing Can Change This Love’ – just go listen to that man sing, please, he’s not the “King of Soul” for nothing. The Sam Cooke of this entire performance was maybe him at his most authentic, most soulful and most raspy and I, for one, am very grateful a live album was made from it.

              Even though they’re maybe not as popular in the era of streaming, live albums aren’t a lost artform. One of my very favourite little moments on Zach Bryan’s All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (yes, we still do) comes when he sings ‘Sweet DeAnn’, a moving song written as a tribute to his mother. After the line ‘you said your boy would be seen by the masses someday’ we hear a sold-out Red Rocks in freezing temperatures prove that point beautifully. One of the greatest joys in life is being able to step back and notice that things are exactly how they were meant to be, like that last jigsaw piece fits perfectly. This moment on ‘Sweet DeAnn’ is one of those and it gets me every time I hear it. You don’t get that on the studio recording.

‘Let me first say how wonderful it feels that it’s 2007 and we just launched into a slow blues and 7000 people in LA went nuts, all is not lost’ John Mayer says on his Where The Light Is: Live In Los Angeles album before a stellar performance of ‘Out Of My Mind’. Another moment in which an artist’s gratefulness for their audience, for the people that appreciate their art and desire to celebrate the same things they do is captured. I sometimes wonder if artists listen back to their performances on live albums, if just to hear their audience’s reaction – part of me hopes they do.

So, live albums, do they bring an album to life? Do they turn an album into something new? Do they capture a moment in music history that can be remembered and studied? The Allman Brothers’ At Fillmore East is a seven track album with an almost hour-twenty-minute runtime – you just can’t cut down jam bands on a live album, maybe that’s the reason for them? Maybe they’re meant to help create a lasting legacy, one that people can revisit even after an artist has passed? Or maybe they’re made so people on the other side of the world can connect with music in a new “live” way? They hold an authenticity that isn’t always captured on studio recordings, whether it’s the occasional missed note, the stories told before a song starts, or the noise of a crowd of people who are all present for the exact same reason. Live music is an incredibly personal yet intrinsically communal experience, and when a live album holds even a fraction of that feeling it’s worth the recording and well worth the listen.