Johnny Cash "At Folsom Prison" [1968]

Goat-voiced pill-popping country hard-ass Johnny Cash somehow managed to cross-over to non-redneck music fans with this live album inside a Texas prison, which apparently had no black people in it (otherwise I'd have expected some sort of anti-twang revolt within the first few songs). Even more puzzlingly, this album came out in 1968 -- when psychedelia was hitting full force and Vietnam protests were getting more violent. Perhaps that's the point of this major-label release: even the squares wanted to feel like they were part of the drugs and chaos. Cash was happy to oblige -- chuckling along to his stark tunes about senselessly murdering people after however many pills and drinks he usually takes before playing a gig. (It's hard to fathom how much less of a career Chuck Berry would have had with the same lyrical content in his material, BTW.) The inmates are nothing if not extremely polite to the Man in Black, even as he struggles Elvis-like to hold himself together and keep the frogs out of his throat. Overall, however, he manages to fulfill his purpose in "At Folsom Prison" by exposing exactly what's wrong with an extraordinarily high percentage of American white men: the calloused swagger in doubling-down on their bigotry and other crimes of ignorance, and compassion that extends only as far as their possessions. Consider this record the blueprint for what you need to know to finally take down the sons of bitches.