Playlists
The Midnight Special Playlist
This playlist samples from every era and genre discussed in The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music. It includes blues and folk, jazz, country, soul, funk, and hip hop—a hundred years of musical history. Some of these songs were recorded in prisons; others were produced in studios but inspired by their creators’ time on the inside. One was recorded and released from North Carolina's death row. Other compositions are the products of imagination and empathy, or works of advocacy—but all say something about the influence that policing and prisons have had on our country's musical culture.
Section I: The Midnight Special and Other Southern Prison Songs
The songs on this playlist highlight Huddie ‘Lead Belly’ Ledbetter’s storytelling gift and irrepressible talent. His 1940 album The Midnight Special and Other Southern Prison Songs anchors the first section of The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music. The songs on it, like many in his catalog, are bright and vibrant but tell a grim story Ledbetter’s experience with the criminal legal system in the Jim Crow South. Some of them have been included here along with songs performed by his peers that focus on the same theme, works by – Bukka White, Peg Leg Howell, Lightnin' Hopkins, Bessie Smith, Furry Lewis, Ma Rainey and others.
Section II: Sounds from Rikers Island
The brilliant but underappreciated pianist Elmo Hope is the star of this playlist. The second section of The Midnight Special focuses on his 1967 album Sounds from Rikers Island, which was produced specifically to highlight the "problems" facing New York's jazz musicians (read: violent and discriminatory policing, untreated addictions, and employment troubles created by the city's cabaret card law). That album isn’t available on Spotify but this playlist samples from Hope’s broad catalog to highlight his talent as a composer, arranger, and performer. Early in his career he toured and recorded with a rhythm and blues band, and woodshedded extensively with his close friends and collaborators Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. Selections from their catalogs and Hope’s early recordings appear here as well.
Section III: At San Quentin
Not much needs to be said about Johnny Cash's At San Quentin here. It sold millions of copies and has legions of fans. But the path Cash traveled to arrive at the prison on the day he recorded it isn’t as well known. His early writing about prisons was typical of the country tradition – voyeuristic, verging on pulpy. Cash’s perspective changed near the beginning of his career though. He became an advocate for prison reform and started writing and recording prison songs that are notable for their empathy and realism. The evolution of Cash’s writing about prisons is reflected on this playlist, which also includes a spoken interlude from Blues in the Mississippi Night (an album that had a profound effect on Cash), a sample of songs recorded by incarcerated musicians who made parole after Cash interceded on their behalf, and selections from live prison albums inspired by the success of At Folsom and At San Quentin.
Section IV: Changin' Times
Unlike the other musicians prominently featured in The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music, Ike White spent most of his career behind bars. He came into his own as a musician while incarcerated at San Quentin and had the good fortune to share a stage with Curtis Mayfield, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Eric Burdon during a prison concert. His guitar work on an inspired version of “Goin’ Down Slow” was captured on tape that day and eventually led to the creation of his album Changin’ Times – recorded entirely inside a California prison. This playlist contains some of the finest tracks from that album (which Greg Errico produced and performed on), along with a sampling of songs recorded by other incarcerated musicians during Ike’s era.
Section V: Me Against the World
Tupac Shakur was a child of the movement. He was conceived while his mother was on trial as part of the Panther 21, and he grew up singing “Stag O’ Lee” and “Take This Hammer” with her. When he began forming his own musical taste, he was drawn to dramatic morality tales (the Les Misérables soundtrack was a favorite) and the socially conscious strain of early hip hop. His first recordings gathered those influences. He wrote cinematic tales of suffering and struggle punctuated by calls for political change and explicit references to figures from the Black liberation movement his mother had been part of. His work changed once he became a public figure and he started feeling embattled by the media, politicians, the police, and courts. His songs became angrier and bleaker and near the end of his short life he regularly mused on his own demise. This playlist tries to capture the arc of his career and the effect of all those influences.
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