Parchman Farm Blues

Bukka White was released from the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman in 1940 and traveled directly to Chicago to record for Vocalion. The resulting session yielded "Parchman Farm Blues," a firsthand, brutal account of the brutal penal farm. Backed by the heavy washboard rhythm of Washboard Sam, White attacked his National steel guitar, singing with a thick, gravelly voice about the agonizing labor and the cruelty of the guards. The incredibly intense, percussive track served as a powerful, journalistic indictment of the Southern prison system, delivered by a man who had barely survived it.