Glen Sherley
| Glen Sherley | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 9, 1936 |
| Died | May 11, 1978 (aged 42) Gonzales, California |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, guitarist and songwriter |
Glen Milborn Sherley (March 9, 1936 − May 11, 1978) was an American criminal who became a country singer-songwriter after his song "Greystone Chapel" was made famous by Johnny Cash in 1968. Sherley wrote the song while in prison and it was performed by Cash at his Folsom Prison performance, later released as the album At Folsom Prison. Sherley was on the front row, unaware that his song was to be played.
Sherley subsequently wrote and performed a number of other songs. However, despite help from Cash, he was unable to adjust to life outside of prison, eventually committing suicide at the age of 42.
Sherley was born in 1936, the son of farm workers in Oklahoma, who migrated to California in the 1940s to work in cotton fields, and on potato and other farms. Sherley was a youth offender, and through the 1950s and 1960s was frequently in and out of prison, for various crimes including one jailbreak. By the time he was discovered by Johnny Cash in 1968 while serving time for armed robbery, Sherley had been an inmate of several state penitentiaries, including Chino, Soledad, San Quentin, and Folsom.
During the late 1960s, Sherley wrote and recorded "Greystone Chapel", in reference to the chapel within Folsom Prison, where he was an inmate at the time. On January 12, 1968 a copy of this recording made its way into the hands of Johnny Cash by way of a Folsom minister who was a friend of Cash's, the night before he was due to appear in concert at Folsom.
In an interview with Life Magazine in 1994 titled "Country Rocks The Country", Johnny Cash said:
The night before I was going to record at Folsom prison, I got to the motel and a preacher friend of mine brought me a tape of a song called "Greystone Chapel." He said a convict had written it about the chapel at Folsom. I listened to it one time and I said, "I've got to do this in the show tomorrow." So I stayed up and learned it, and the next day the preacher had him in the front row. I announced, "This song was written by Glen Sherley." It was a terrible, terrible thing to point him out among all those cons, but I didn't think about that then. Everybody just had a fit, screaming and carrying on.
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