Starting with Bessie Smith’s defiant Send Me To The ’Lectric Chair (1927) and going through to Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues (1955), this is a 20-track collection of prison songs. Few of the performers went inside themselves, but Bukka White apparently did. Although Steve Hardstaff’s authoritative notes question this, White is chilling on Parchman Farm Blues.
All with a fine audio quality (although the bonus track is too distorted for enjoyment) the unexpected delights include Gene Autry’s yodelling Dallas County Jail Blues (1931) with fine Hawaiian steel playing, and Merline Johnson’s piano-based R&B Crime Doesn’t Pay (1937). Some of the tracks are so obscure that Bob Dylan only played one of them on the Theme Time Radio Hour devoted to Jail (we’d never heard of the Oklahoma Tornadoes, but they harmonise well on the Cajun Dans La Prison). The Robins, who became The Coasters, give us Riot In Cell Block Number Nine (1954) with a lead vocal from Richard Berry, who wrote Louie Louie. Incidentally, he also wrote and recorded the …Number Nine ripoff here, The Big Break.
Viper should send a copy to Paris Hilton.
