Los Tigres del Norte Give Johnny Cash’s Classic Prison Concert a Norteño Update

Fifty years after Johnny Cash performed a concert at California’s Folsom Prison, five other Men in Black visited the facility to treat its inmates to a live performance to show them that the outside world hasn’t forgotten them. A new documentary captures the commemorative 2018 concert by Los Tigres del Norte, one of the most influential bands in Latin music and one of the most prolific in norteño, a genre of music from Northern Mexico that has roots in polka.

Watching Los Tigres del Norte at Folsom Prison, you get the feeling that not much has changed since Cash’s 1968 performance at the prison (which was recorded and released as the acclaimed album At Folsom Prison). The facility's thick, ominous walls, the rusty bars on its cells and its dingy lighting all convey a feeling of inertia. But the demographics have shifted. According to the documentary, 43 percent of the men in Folsom are Latino. Another difference is that there are now 400 women at the prison, a quarter of whom are Latina.

So it makes sense that a norteño group would be a good choice to mark this anniversary, given the changes at the prison and the current climate in the U.S. when it comes to immigration and criminal justice. The parallels between Cash and Los Tigres are easy to see in other ways. There are appeals to the downtrodden and marginalized, and there are stylistic outlaw flourishes, with criminals and narcos taking up space in the band's catalog alongside tragic lovers, defiant workers and hustling immigrants. (The band was also founded the same year as Cash’s concert.)

“We have come to Folsom Prison to be with those who have lost their way and those who have been forgotten,” says Jorge Hernández, the band’s accordion player and lead singer, in a voiceover.

Los Tigres perform outside in front of the appropriately named Greystone Chapel. The camera often pans over the crowd, the setting sun hitting the faces of smiling prisoners.

They kicked the show off with a cover of “Folsom Prison Blues” in Spanish — there's a similar bounce in the bass, but Hernandez’s lead accordion and smooth vocals give it a unique flair. The group paired “Folsom Prison Blues” with their classic cut from the ’80s “Jaula de Oro” (“Golden Cage”). The corrido is about an undocumented immigrant and the challenges he and his family face in the U.S. Ultimately, the narrator’s fear of deportation keeps him shut inside: The supposed land of opportunity becomes another prison.

“The stories they tell are about what the people are suffering,” says one inmate. “We all identify with them.” 

Intercut with concert footage are interviews with prisoners, describing their crimes and regrets, and sharing how they or their parents came to the U.S. The band also meets with some of the inmates in the chapel of Folsom prison, and even invite a prisoner who comes from a family of norteño musicians to join them for a song.

The documentary highlights how Los Tigres give the prison concert an intersectional twist. Many of their songs in the concert doc deal with immigration, as do the stories of many inmates. At one point they dedicate another song to an inmate who lost her deferred action status because of her conviction.

“If I could, I would demolish the borders with my song,” says Hernández during a spoken portion of "De Paisano a Paisano" (“From Countryman to Countryman”), holding his hat to the sky, “so that the world could live with just one flag, in one single nation.”

Los Tigres del Norte at Folsom Prison hits Netflix on September 15, the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, and the soundtrack will be released that same day. You can check out the video for their cover of Cash's titular classic below.