SALEM -- In 1968 country music legend Johnny Cash released an album recorded live in California's Folsom Prison.

Fifty years later, a few hundred inmates at the Oregon State Penitentiary sat beneath the brilliant sun, backs bare, feet tapping to the same tunes.

As the last notes of "I Walk the Line" washed over the prison yard Saturday, cheers and whistles erupted from the men.

It was a scene few have witnessed. And one dreamt up by Johnny Cash, who was remembered with an "At Folsom Prison" 50th anniversary performance by Luther's Boots, a Johnny Cash cover band.

Cash's work includes songs of struggle like "Cocaine Blues," "Jackson," "I Hear the Train a Comin'," "Ring of Fire" and "Greystone Chapel," which were all included in the Luther's Boots Folsom50 tour.

"It heals our souls," said Austin Clark, a 27-year-old serving a life sentence for murder who said Cash's songs speak to lifestyle choices he can relate to. "We'll still be talking about this in a year, or 10."

Luther's Boots is bringing more than music to the inmates. Saturday's show -- the band's first in a maximum security prison -- doubled as a fundraising effort for a Japanese healing garden to be built inside the prison yard. Organizers see the garden as a way to improve inmates' mental health.

About a year ago, Danny Wilson, 52, a born-and-raised Portlander, suggested to his band they play "Folsom Prison Blues" in local bars.

His friend, Tracy Schlapp, gave him a counter-offer: What about taking the show into prisons?

So they started making phone calls.

As of Sunday, 12 of the 14 correctional institutions in Oregon have shown interest in arranging a performance. He's since realized this tour is about more than just music.

"I saw that they need humanity and light in their life," Wilson said. "At the very simplest level, it's about treating people like human beings and just providing them a moment of relief from their daily life."

Schlapp, a visual artist from Portland with whom Wilson co-produced the Folsom50 project, said in researching Cash's songs she became much more aware of how the musician addressed the poverty-to-prison pipeline, homesickness and hopelessness.

The five-member band played its first show at Columbia River Correctional Institute, followed by a concert at the all-female Coffee Creek facility.

Johnny Cofer, 45, who is 19 years into a life sentence for murder, is coordinating the Oregon State Penitentiary's garden project, sponsored by the Asian Pacific Family Club. The project, conceived five years ago, was approved for fundraising efforts in May 2017 with a goal of $180,000.

The garden's biggest outside supporter is Hoichi Kurisu, a well-known landscape designer who created the Portland Japanese Garden and whom Cofer equated to a "Jedi master."

"I hope it brings a sense of humanity to an otherwise forgotten community," said Cofer, who hopes to break ground in late summer and have the project finished by the end of the year.

Cofer, a member of the Asian Pacific Family Club and Lifers Unlimited Club, said he hopes the garden transforms inmate's lives.

"The effects are already taking hold of the community," he said. "It's building hope and optimism."

About 270 inmates paid $25 for early admission into the show along with a catered meal. A few dozen community donors who paid up to $500 also joined the inmates in the yard. An hour into the show, the gates opened and most of the rest of the prison population spilled onto the lawn.

Inmate Jimmy Kashi, who is eight years into a minimum 41.5-year-sentence for murder, recalled listening to Cash's cover of the Nine Inch Nails song "Hurt" 11 years ago.

"In my heyday of my addiction, I'd turn off all the lights in my house, get high and just turn that on," said Kashi, 38. "There's been dark moments in my life and that [song] really resonated with me."

He said prison helped him turn his life around and he now has passions and is involved in the prison community as vice president of the Asian Pacific Family Club.

Kashi is an advocate for adding elements of nature to the prison yard to help lower anxiety levels and improve mental health among prisoners.

"It's often a negative lens that we view incarceration through but there's transformation, there's amazing things that happen inside these walls that are often unsaid," Kashi said.

Kurisu agreed. He said what makes this project different from other gardens he's designed is that the concept came from within the walls, from men seeking a place to soul search.

Kurisu's daughter, Michiko Kurisu, said much of society seems to believe once someone is locked up, the key is thrown away and no one has to think about them anymore.

But the reality is that for 93 percent of inmates, the time behind walls is temporary, said Tonya Gushard, a state penitentiary spokesman.

This, Kurisu said, is why the garden could be such an asset to the prisoners.

As the band wrapped up their final song, an inmate walked up and thanked the donors for coming. "Drive safe and watch out for people like me," he added with a laugh.

The Folsom50 series is having a public show July 28 at Skyline Tavern to help raise money for the prison tour. The next prison show is Aug. 4 at the Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem followed by a second performance at Columbia River Correctional on Aug. 19.

--Anna Spoerre