Johnny Cash on Our Personal Prisons

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In the 1990 documentary Amazing Grace, Bill Moyers looks at how one song has changed people’s lives across America, from church choirs to opera singers to prison inmates. In this clip, Johnny Cash performs “Amazing Grace,” which he played for an audience at Huntsville State Prison in Texas. Cash reflects on the first time he sang it — in the fields with his family, grieving after his brother died. We also hear from members of Huntsville’s prison choir what “Amazing Grace” means to someone spending the rest of his life being punished for his crimes.

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