Cash continued performing the song after Folsom. He recorded a studio version that appeared on subsequent compilations. The song’s specific character — a declaration of spiritual persistence in the most confined of circumstances — gave it a durability beyond its origins. It was not just a song about Folsom Prison’s chapel; it was a song about what faith looks like when material freedom is absent, and that subject remains relevant whenever the song is performed.
When Sherley was paroled in 1971 and joined Cash’s organization, there was a specific awkwardness around the song. The man who had written it had been, in some sense, defined by it — his entire public identity outside the prison walls was organized around being the man who wrote the song that Cash had performed and recorded at Folsom. This was not entirely comfortable. Sherley was a musician with other songs, other capabilities, other aspirations. Being permanently identified with one song written in prison was a form of its own confinement.
He performed his own music on the road with Cash, including a version of “Greystone Chapel” that allowed him to claim ownership of the song in a way that the album had transferred to Cash in the public mind. Cash, in his introductions of Sherley, was careful to identify him as the song’s author — but the author’s presence did not fully dislodge Cash’s performance from the cultural position it had come to occupy.
After Sherley’s death, the song’s ownership question became more complex. His estate retained the copyright; the song continues to generate royalties when it is performed or recorded. But in the cultural imagination, “Greystone Chapel” is a Cash song, identified with the Folsom album, in a way that “Folsom Prison Blues” or “Jackson” are Cash songs. Sherley’s authorship is a footnote to most listeners, however central it is to the album’s most affecting story.