Various
Parchman Prison Prayer-some Mississippi Sunday Morning
Haunting in situ recordings from Parchman Farm maximum security prison in Mississippi (USA). Producer Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ustad Saami, Ramblin Jack Elliott, Zomba Prison Project) recorded the prison's Sunday gospel service and the results are unforgettable. The raw performances range from solo a capella to a floor-shaking electric band. The repertoire includes both traditional and newly penned spirituals. "Some Mississippi Sunday Morning" is an unfiltered and deeply resonant journey into a musical world rarely seen or heard. Most songs are covers of Gospel standards, but delivered so imbued with subtext that they were transformed almost unrecognizably from the source material. One of the beauties of the experience was that it was a successful integration of white and black inmates, whose services are often held separately due to racial tensions.