OPENING ACT

In 2018, Danny Wilson and Tracy Schlapp created the Folsom50 project with their band Luther's Boots to commemorate Johnny Cash’s legendary prison concerts. The performance resonated with Cash’s belief in reinvention, his own redemption — a biographical thread that ran through all of Cash’s catalog. During the first year, Luther’s Boots performed concerts in eleven of the fourteen Oregon prisons. Rather than replicating the shows, Luther’s Boots reinterpreted Cash’s music and styling by drawing from Cash’s ability to transmit the emotional complexity of hillbilly music. The songs from the At Folsom Prison live recording were styled by the band with an ear to contemporary audiences. Co-producer Tracy Schlapp wrote the essay “Cash, Music, Legacy, & Redemption” to contextual the show for a prison audience by looking closely at the original prison concerts, Cash's biography, his own writing, and the songs themselves. The covers were printed on the CP letterpress and hand bound. During the first Folsom50 tour, Schlapp and Wilson handed out 2500 chapbooks to prisoners in Oregon. 

JOHNNY CASH: MUSIC, LEGACY, & REDEMPTION

Tracy Schlapp developed the initial essay about Cash to tell the story that unfolded during a year of rehearsals and performances with the band Luther’s Boots. The Oregon Arts Commission provided a generous grant to publish the limited-edition Scoutbook to help document the project. This essay was then translated into a musical performance, featuring Schlapp telling stories about contemporary prison life and Wilson playing excerpts from the show. During 2019, the two toured to share this work in Oregon prisons and local communities thanks to an Oregon Humanities grant. They completed their tour in Dyess, Arkansas presenting at the Johnny Cash Heritage Festival.

LUTHER’S BOOTS TOUR TWO

In June 2019, the band kicked-off the second season with “Flip the Record” a set of songs that start with the Sun Studio recordings and finish with selections from the American Recordings with Rick Rubin.

LETTERPRESS AND THE SOUTH

People who know Nashville's Ryman Auditorium (the mother church and home of the Grand Ole Opry) know Hatch Show Print. For over 100 years, this letterpress shop has been using movable type and hand-carved images to sell tickets to events — think rock stars to wrestlers, musicians, and magicians. Cumbersome Multiples created letterpress postcards, posters, and even show programs to extend the spirit of Nashville.

YEAR THREE: DARKENED ROAD AHEAD

While he was playing Cash in prison, Wilson was writing his own songs. He proposed to record the songs he wrote during the Oregon Prison Tour and perform them inside for the third Oregon Prison tour and Regional Arts & Culture Council awarded him a project grant. January 2020, Luther’s Boots packed their gear into the Shady Pines Media studio to record Darkened Road Ahead. The album debut was planned for March 10 at Columbia River Correctional Facility. A few days before the show, one of the “Boots” was quite ill and it was prudent to reschedule for April 15. Soon after, Oregon Department of Corrections announced closing the prisons to all volunteers in order to protect the Adults in Custody from Covid-19. A live stream of the album’s debut was recorded and distributed to play in the prisons. The album’s title was a harbinger of things to come.

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