ALBUM REVIEW: Parchman Prison Prayer: Another Mississippi Sunday Morning

For most people, Sunday is a day of rest and reflection, a time to put the trials and tribulations of the past week behind and look forward to a new beginning. But for the men of Mississippi State Penitentiary, better known as Parchman Farm, new beginnings are hard to come by. Parchman is Mississippi’s oldest penitentiary, a maximum security prison known for its brutal treatment of inmates, since its founding in 1901. Inmates do farm-related labor on the 28-acre property six days a week but are allowed a brief respite on Sunday mornings for church services.

Although media access is severely limited, a few sound pilgrims have been granted brief visits over the years to document inmate life on the premises. Folk researchers John and Alan Lomax visited in 1933. Alan told biographer John Szwed in his 2010 bio, The Man Who Recorded The World, that what Lomax heard there made renowned poet Walt Whitman look like a child and poet Carl Sandburg look like an amateur. And in 2022, Grammy-winning author/producer Ian Brennan was granted access after a three year application process. His initial project, Parchman Prison Prayer: Some Mississippi Sunday Morning produced stunning results. Now, he releases his follow up album, Parchman Prison Prayer: Another Mississippi Sunday Morning.

Although the first recording session was conducted under strict supervision, for this latest project, there were no guards or chaplains present for the four-hour session. The 12 participants ranged in age from 23 to 74, and three of them are serving lifetime sentences.

Although the album is classified as gospel, you’re not likely to hear the likes of it in any church. The opening cut, “Parchman Prison Blues” is about as close as you can get without an autopsy to experience what prison does to a man. This wordless expression of soul-scorching, ongoing agony penetrates deep into a listener’s bones like a dirge for the living dead.

Despite the grim surrounding, there is hope. J. Robinson and L. Stevenson (prisoners are credited on the album only by their first initial, last name, and age) collaborate on “MC Hammer.” Stevenson provides beatboxing accompaniment as Robinson invokes the spirit of the former rapper turned preacher, rapping about his secular-rooted gospel conversion. After giving a gleeful shout out to his mother (“So much joy when I see my momma/ I’m gonna smile like I came from the dentist”) Robinson gets down to his spiritual business: “The spirit all in me/ I feel it/ Holy spirit dancin’ in me like MC Hammer/ Whew, whew/ too legit.”

Former Kirk Franklin and the Family singer Tamela Mann’s 2012 Grammy nominated single, “Take Me To The King,” was a powerful statement in her hands, but 41-year-old D. Justice’s whispered version makes your blood run cold, a fervent prayer for redemption with only his shattered heart to offer as a sacrifice for a glimpse of glory. “Jesus Will Never Say No,” by the Parchman Prison Band, is perhaps the most commercial track. The call and response jubilee-style gospel number is ready for a church house or a roaming tent revival and sure to rev up a crowd of worshipers and get the spirit moving.

Parchman Prison Prayer: Another Mississippi Sunday Morning is the real deal. It’s a stunning album that’ll knock you to your knees and make you want to give thanks for your situation, while you admire the spirit of those who cannot share your liberties, but get by with a little help from above.

Parchman Prison Prayer: Another Mississippi Sunday Morning is out Jan. 19 via Glitterbeat.