The Huntingtons
The Huntingtons debut album "Sweet Sixteen" was released in 1996 by Flying Tart Records. A few months later, their first attempt at recording Ramones covers, entitled "Rocket to Ramonia" saw limited release via the Burnt Toast Vinyl label. At this point the band added a second guitarist, Tom Rehbein (later in Small Towns Burn a Little Slower). After working with producer Mass Giorgini for the band's next album, "Fun and Games", Tom was replaced by Brad Ber. After the album's release in mid-1997, the band started touring and gained a cult following. Their big break came in 1998, when they signed to Tooth & Nail Records and released "High School Rock".
Johnny Cash
Cash began performing concerts at prisons starting in the late 1950s. He played his first famous prison concert on January 1, 1958, at San Quentin State Prison. These performances led to a pair of highly successful live albums, "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison" (1968) and "Johnny Cash at San Quentin" (1969). Both live albums reached number one on "Billboard" country album music and the latter crossed over to reach the top of the "Billboard" pop album chart. In 1969, Cash became an international hit when he eclipsed even the Beatles by selling 6.5 million albums. In comparison, the prison concerts were much more successful than his later live albums such as "Strawberry Cake" recorded in London and "Live at Madison Square Garden", which peaked at numbers 33 and 39 on the album charts, respectively.
The Folsom Prison record was introduced by a rendition of his "Folsom Prison Blues" while the San Quentin record included the crossover hit single "A Boy Named Sue", a Shel Silverstein-penned novelty song that reached number one on the country charts and number two on the U.S. top-10 pop charts. The AM versions of the latter contained profanities which were edited out of the aired version. The modern CD versions are unedited, thus making them longer than the original vinyl albums, though they retain the audience-reaction overdubs of the originals.