Photo: Getty Images
Sam Hunt nodded to Johnny Cash and featured his then-pregnant wife in the music video he premiered on Friday morning (March 22), filmed at a prison in East Tennessee. Hunt’s “Locked Up” recreates the music legend’s performance for Folsom Prison inmates. Cash performed at the California facility in the late 1960s, and later released his first live album, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison.
Hunt begins his music video arriving at the prison with his wife, Hannah Lee Fowler, who was pregnant with the couple’s second child at the time of filming. Hunt and Fowler welcomed Baby No. 2, son Lowry Lee, in late October 2023. His name is a combination of Hunt’s middle name with Fowler’s. Lowry Lee joined big sister Lucy Louise, who turns 2 in May.
“We found a really cool old prison in East Tennessee, and we had this idea originally to recreate the Johnny Cash Folsom Prison concert that he did back in the day and dressed up in all black, a suit, and I got a bunch of local guys to come out and dress up as inmates and had a really good time with it, sort of a period piece idea, I guess you could call it. I don’t know if I did Johnny Cash justice,” Hunt said, via his record label. “I doubt I did, but I enjoyed making the video and had my family out there with me and met a lot of cool folks who came out to help us with this video, so that was one of the more fun video experiences I’ve had.”
Hunt teamed up with Shane McAnally, Josh Osborne, Jerry Flowers to write “Locked Up,” produced by Zach Crowell. Hunt shared that he started with the title of the song in his phone, though he “had no idea what it might be about” in the early stages.
“I wanted to write a song called ‘Locked Up.’ I had no idea about what it may be about, although I have had a few run-ins with the law in my lifetime,” the Georgia-born artist said. “My producer was playing me some music, he had built some tracks and was playing through a few songs, and I was looking at my phone, and I saw the title in the songs. The music sounded like the title, which is always a good start, and I just started singing that chorus. I think I filled in, 30-40 percent of the lyric in one take.”
Watch the “Locked Up” music video here: