Singer Johnny Cash never did time in Folsom State Prison, but the concert he performed there in January 1968 put the prison on the map and marked a turning point in the entertainer's career.

The resulting album, "At Folsom Prison," and its signature song, "Folsom Prison Blues," have led many people to believe that Cash experienced life behind those gray stone walls, said Jim Brown, a retired correctional officer and operations manager of the Retired Correctional Peace Officers Museum at Folsom Prison.

Among the souvenirs most requested by museum visitors are photos of Cash during his now-legendary performance for inmates. Until recently, Brown said, all he could offer were the photos included with a CD of the concert.

But thanks to his fluke encounter with a former newspaper reporter last year, the museum now sells candid photos of Cash taken during that 1968 visit, as well as an 18-by-24-inch print of the singer standing in front of the prison's east gate.

Cash became intrigued with the prison after watching the film "Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison," while serving in the U.S. Air Force in the early 1950s. It inspired him to write "Folsom Prison Blues," recorded with Sun Records in 1956.

The song became popular with inmates at numerous prisons, and many wrote to Cash asking him to come visit. Cash responded with several prison performances, beginning in 1957 and including one at Folsom Prison in 1966. But it was his return in 1968 to record a live album for Columbia Records that is celebrated in music annals.

Gene Beley was a 28-year-old reporter with the Ventura Star-Free Press when he and the newspaper's chief photographer, Dan Poush, were invited to accompany Cash to Folsom Prison. Cash was living in the Ventura area at the time.

Beley, now 69 and living in Stockton, returned to the prison a few months ago to participate in a BBC radio documentary marking the 40th anniversary of the concert.

"I took a picture along to give Jim Brown as a gift, and he freaked out," Beley said in a telephone interview, describing Brown's excitement upon learning of the photo collection.

Beley, who also recorded the concert on a reel-to-reel tape recorder for reporting purposes, said he had no idea it would prove to be a historic event.

"At the time," he recalled, "John was really on the skids."

Stories in the hometown paper were more often about Cash's brushes with the law – smuggling pills across the Mexican border or driving his Cadillac at high speeds – than about his musical talent, Beley said.

But a meeting between Poush and the Rev. Floyd Gressett at a New Year's Eve party led to an invitation for the photographer and reporter to accompany Cash to Folsom Prison for the Jan. 13 concert. Gressett, a friend of Cash's who ministered to California inmates, had worked with the prison's recreation director, Lloyd Kelley, to set up the concert.

Beley was with Cash's party in a room at West Sacramento's El Rancho Hotel the night before the concert when Gressett asked Cash to listen to a tape recording by Folsom Prison inmate Glen Sherley.

"John said, 'Has anybody got a tape recorder?' " recalled Beley, "and I raised my hand."

Cash leaned over the tape recorder and wrote down the words to Sherley's composition, "Greystone Chapel," which tells of the solace the inmate found in the chapel at Folsom Prison. Cash performed it the following day, and Poush photographed Sherley listening in the audience.

Cash was a strong advocate for prison reform, and Sherley played with Cash's band for a while following his release from prison.

Beley said Columbia Records had hired a photographer for the concert, and when Beley and Poush arrived at the prison, record company officials forbade them to take pictures. But Cash overheard the conversation and intervened, saying "These are my friends," and telling them they could photograph whatever they wished.

The concert and record album changed the course of Cash's career. The live version of "Folsom Prison Blues" became a Top 40 hit.

Cash also married June Carter, who had performed with him at Folsom Prison and helped him overcome his drug abuse.

"It was like God grabbing him by the lapel and pulling him back up on top," said Beley, who continued to cover Cash's concerts for several years.

In later years, Beley tried, as a freelance writer, to interest publications in stories about Gressett and Kelley's role in arranging the Folsom Prison concert. He found no takers. But the night Cash died in 2003, Beley said, newspapers and magazines began calling him.

Beley said he and Poush, now a commercial photographer in Lake Oswego, Ore., combined their copyrighted photo collections and decided it was time to offer selections to the public. Currently, he said, the photos taken at Folsom Prison are available only at the prison museum and a shop in Billings, Mont.

Call The Bee's Cathy Locke, (916) 608-7451.