Columbia initially invested little in promoting the album or its single. The label’s focus was on its pop stars and mainstream acts; the country division was not a priority. This limited investment meant that the album’s subsequent commercial success was not the result of a heavy promotional push. It built more organically, through radio play of the “Folsom Prison Blues” single, through word of mouth, and through the recognition among listeners that what they were hearing was different in kind from the smooth Nashville Sound that dominated the country charts.
—
## Commercial Reception and What Came Next
The “Folsom Prison Blues” single entered the Billboard Hot 100 on May 25, 1968, and the Hot Country Singles chart a week later. Its subsequent removal from some radio stations after the Kennedy assassination and the label’s decision to release an edited version paradoxically increased its profile — the story of a song being edited for content was itself a story that brought attention to the record.
The edited single reached number one on the Hot Country Singles chart. The album climbed to number one on the U.S. Top Country Albums chart and reached number 13 on the pop album chart. By August 1968, shipments had exceeded 300,000 copies. The album was certified gold in October 1968, representing more than 500,000 copies. It eventually achieved triple platinum certification in the United States, representing more than 3 million copies.
For comparison: Cash had been a commercially successful artist in the early 1960s, but his album sales had declined significantly through the drug years. The commercial performance of At Folsom Prison — a live album recorded in a prison, without the production gloss that Nashville Sound albums typically carried — was not what anyone at Columbia had predicted.