Glen Sherley

In the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic film Walk The Line, Cash reads a letter presumably written by Sherley. Sherley's name briefly appears in a shot of the letter, but it is misspelled "Glen Shirley."

In an interview with Life Magazine in 1994 titled "Country Rocks The Country", Johnny Cash said:

In May 1978 while high on drugs Sherley shot a man. Sometime after that he called his daughter to say he was not going back to jail. Two days later on May 11, while hiding out in his brother’s house in Gonzales, California, he put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Cash agreed to pay for the funeral, and the 42 year old Glen Sherley was laid to rest in Shafter, California.

After the release of Greystone Chapel, Sherley's next major success came in 1971, when country singer Eddy Arnold recorded another song written by Sherley, "Portrait Of My Woman." The song became the title track of Arnold's next release.

Following the fame gained through the Arnold release, Sherley was offered the chance to record a live album, Glen Sherley, while still in prison. The album was a success when it was recorded, with the permission of prison officials, and released by Mega Records. Production supervision was provided by House of Cash with musicians from the Nashville area, leading to an offer from Johnny Cash himself to join Cash's publishing organization, House of Cash. When Sherley was released from Prison in 1971, he was met at the gates by Cash. His album was re-released by Bear Family Records as Glen Sherley - Live at Vacaville, California. A remastered version of his album was produced and released by his estate in 2017. The Album "Glen Sherley: Released Again" includes 3 bonus tracks, one of which is an original demo he recorded in his cell.

After being transferred from Folsom Prison to Vacaville he worked in the prison hospital unit where he met Spade Cooley, who was serving a life sentence for murder, until his death in 1969 while on a 72-hour leave from prison. Cooley was known to be a positive influence on Sherley. Sherley was able to refine his music abilities as well as his abilities to deal with his audience.

During the late 1960s, Sherley wrote and recorded "Greystone Chapel," in reference to the chapel within Folsom Prison, where he was an inmate at the time. On January 12, 1968 a copy of this recording made its way into the hands of Johnny Cash by way of a Folsom minister who was a friend of Cash's, the night before he was due to appear in concert at Folsom.

"Greystone Chapel" was recorded, along with the rest of Cash's Folsom performance, on January 13, 1968.

Glen Milborn Sherley (March 9, 1936 − May 11, 1978) was an American citizen who became a country singer-songwriter after his song "Greystone Chapel" was made famous by Johnny Cash in 1968. Sherley wrote the song while in prison and it was later performed by Cash at his Folsom Prison performance, which was eventually released as the album At Folsom Prison. Sherley was in the front row, unaware that his song was going to be played.

Sherley was born in 1936 as the son of farm workers in Oklahoma. They migrated to California in the 1940s to work in cotton fields, potato farms and more. Sherley was a youth offender, and through the 1950s and 1960s was frequently in and out of prison for various crimes including one jailbreak. By the time he was discovered by Johnny Cash in 1968 while serving time for armed robbery, Sherley had been an inmate of several state penitentiaries, including Chino, Soledad, San Quentin, and Folsom.