PARCHMAN PRISON PRAYER - Another Mississippi Sunday Morning
“From a cappella and delicately inflected tenor ornamentation to a hypnotic basso profundo chant; from an urgent rap about a singer’s remorse to a hopeful choral outburst: this is inspirational music, triumphant rather than beaten down and defeated.” — BBC Music
“Captures radiant voices rejoicing in the freedom of creative expression.” — MOJO
“A rare document that plunges straight into the heart of another America.” — Libération (France)
Another Mississippi Sunday Morning is the poignant sequel to Some Mississippi Sunday Morning (2023), the prison-recorded gospel album that was met with unexpected global acclaim by the likes of the New York Times, The Guardian, the New Yorker, and BBC (just to name a few).
In early 2024 Grammy-winning producer Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ustad Saami, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, The Good Ones [Rwanda]) returned to the Parchman Farm maximum security facility in the Mississippi to record a second collection of raw and haunting performances from the prison's Sunday gospel service. The results are once again captivating and unforgettable.
Twelve men participated in the new recording session, ranging in age from 23 to 74. Three are serving life sentences and six of them were newer arrivals or not on the debut album. There were no guards or chaplains present this time.
Like the first album, all songs were first takes, recorded 100% live and without overdubs. The session took four hours, twice the length of time Brennan was alotted for Some Mississippi Sunday Morning. This time the singers knew what to expect and some came to the session with pre-prepared material.
“Certain people who were involved the first time became very prominent this time,” Brennan says. “They were also more motivated to write their own songs, so a lot of them had done that in advance. A couple of those from before were really eager to do song after song. Everybody sang at least one song.”
Though all of the music is intimate and stripped back, each song and performance, whether it is based on traditional gospel or Hip Hop or the deep blues, has an individual and powerful story to tell.
The track “Open the Floodgates of Heaven (Let It Rain)” was recorded as a storm suddenly splattered and thundered. Singer J. Hemphill’s interpretation of the source material is so singular that it is unrecognizable as a cover. Now sixty-seven years old, Hemphill has been serving a life sentence since his early-twenties. The tenderness in his voice stands in hard contrast to the realities of his daily life.
The curiously titled “MC Hammer,” is the second single to be released from the album. Through his rap, J. Robinson (thirty-four years old), weaves a tale that uses Mr. Hammer as the punchline of his incantation of spiritual and personal imagery: “The Holy Spirit dancing like MC Hammer.”
Accompanied only by improvised beatbox from L. Stevenson (thirty-one years old), the pair manage to strip Hip Hop back to the barest of roots— groove and grime. Incarcerated since age eighteen, Mr. Stevenson is currently facing life imprisonment.
The album’s first single “Parchman Prison Blues,” was the last song recorded that day. Six of the men huddled together and improvised a sublime, wordless expression of their pain and longing. It is a gripping opener to an album marked by resonant emotion and fragile hope.
“These recordings help make corporeal the nuance of trauma,” Brennan states. “Every person on every side of a violence action is diminished by it, including - albeit to a lesser degree - the perpetrator.”
As with the first album, any and all artist proceeds benefit Parchman’s chaplain services program.
* Ian Brennan’s quotes are from: ‘Another Sunday Morning’ at Parchman Prison, Mixonline, November 7th, 2024
