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Parchman Prison Prayer — Another Mississippi Sunday Morning

By its inherent—as well as infamous—nature, the very location encases any recordings that make it out of its clutch within an indefinable aura. Namely, all the sound, over all the recordings, over all the years, haunts. Yet, for decades, the heavily guarded site has been a beckoning source of raw emotion for songcatchers. Still remains so to this day. The major snag, however, is that you and your portable recorder must go to it; its music most definitely cannot come to you. Enter—voluntarily—if you dare.

 

Alright, now let’s have church.

 

Where? A 30-minute drive south out of Clarksdale, down Highway 49, off in the Delta flatlands.

 

Where, exactly? Within the maximum-security Mississippi State Penitentiary: Parchman Farm. The notorious Parchman Farm. Where Son House—Charley Patton’s pal, Robert Johnson’s mentor and Muddy Waters’ influencer—spent time during the 1920s. Where Bukka White took his turn in the 1930s, and was twice recorded in Camp No. 10 by John Lomax on May 23, 1939 (“Sic ’Em Dogs On Me” and “Po’ Boy”). And where R.L. Burnside, the late, one-chord king of north Mississippi’s hill country, did his stint in the 1950s.

 

But for all of the lead-weight blues that have been housed within these walls from then until now, it was the counterbalancing, fly-away spirituals that recently drew multi-Grammy-winning, globetrotting producer Ian Brennan back past the razor wire once more.

 

Once inside, it’s Another Mississippi Sunday Morning, just as was its 2023 predecessor, Some Mississippi Sunday Morning. The prison’s Sunday gospel service again relinquishes uniquely personal moments, each wrapped in that intangible element. Twelve men are heard; inmates, every one of them. Their ages run from 23 all the way up to 75. Some are serving life sentences. All free up their voices in live, first take, no-overdub performances. An isolated instrument may sneak in here and there to lend a little support; “Jesus Will Never Say No” receives the most muscle, thumping like an anxious heart under the Parchman Prison Band’s momentum. Often, though, this is church for one: solo, stark, a cappella soliloquies. Conversations between man and his Maker.

 

No strain is required to find meaning in the words or the delivery of these 13 bare tracks. Sixty-seven-year-old J. Hemphill’s singing—humbled and desolate and just a few ticks away from being all used up, emotionally—disappears into “Open the Floodgates of Heaven.” The touch is extra soft, piano included, intensifying the poignancy of the simple plead that gets plumbed to its lowliest depths: “Open the floodgates of heaven; let it rain, let it rain.” Thankfulness, affirmation and praise fill up “I Won’t Complain” (C.S. Deloch), “I Shall Not Want” (M. Kyles’ illumination of Psalm 23) and “Living Testimony” (Hemphill, again). For 58 seconds, J. Sherman’s “Stand for You” faces Judgement Day, likewise unaccompanied.

 

Similarly soul-searching, J. Robinson expresses himself in more contemporary terms by rapping about the Holy Spirit dancing like “MC Hammer” while L. Stevenson beatboxes a percussive undercurrent. “Take Me to the King” breaks protocol, too. Instead of saturating the room with his otherworldly intentions, D. Justice repeatedly whispers them into your ear as a looping mantra. The thundering drumbeat rolling underneath turns it all the more unearthly. In contrast, M. Palmer anchors “Grace Will Lead Me On” to the ground with a voice as deep and pitch-dark as asphalt. The mini sermonette flashes back to his boyhood, unlocking a memory palace through which he leads in the company of a burbling chapel organ.

 

Yet no matter how much divine salvation may swamp the microphones, blues do seep into the session, ultimately showing up in the atmospheric storm cloud that is “Parchman Prison Blues.” Wordless and shapeless, the group-chant vents heavy emotion. If you’ve ever been chilled by Blind Willie Johnson’s surreal “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” from 1927, then you’re acquainted with the capacity for absolute minimalism to impart maximum impact. The current chiller is stripped all the more so. No guitar; strictly voice. Voice multiplied by the power of six for two-and-a-half spectral minutes. That inescapable Parchman aura glows thickest of all here.

 

As with the first album, any and all artist proceeds from Another Mississippi Sunday Morning benefit Parchman’s chaplain services program.

 

Label: Glitterbeat

Release Date: 1/17/25

Label Website: glitterbeat.com

 

Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski





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