Luther Perkins had no formal musical training. He learned to play by ear, by practice, by the specific requirements of the job Cash gave him. The simplicity of his style was not the simplicity of a musician with limited technique but the simplicity of a musician who had found the exactly right thing to play and saw no reason to embellish it. Producers and musicians who worked with Cash sometimes noted, not unkindly, that Luther could not play very quickly and could not easily play things he hadn’t practiced. Within his range, he was unmatched.
He died on August 5, 1968, just months after the Folsom recording. He had fallen asleep while smoking in bed at his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee; the resulting fire left him with severe burns, and he died two days later. He was 38 years old. The Folsom album, recorded in January, was released in May; Luther Perkins never saw the full commercial response to the record he had helped make.
Marshall Grant was the third member of the original Tennessee Three — the core unit that had backed Cash since 1955. He played stand-up bass on the early records and later switched to electric bass. Where Luther Perkins was quiet and reserved, Grant was talkative and organized; he served as the band’s road manager as well as its bassist, handling the logistics of touring that Cash himself was often unable to manage through the drug years. His account of the Folsom concert — including his description of Sherley’s reaction when “Greystone Chapel” began — is one of the few eyewitness reports from someone who was onstage throughout the event.