It already seems certain that in 2025 Glitterbeat Records will maintain their reputation for having the most wonderfully eclectic selection of releases. For the first two months of the year, they have releases lined-up from Malian desert blues artist Samba Toure, Korean composer and multi-instrumentalist Park Jiha, and Polish post-punk group Trupa Trupa. First up, though, and sounding unlike any of these other releases is Parchman Prison Prayer’s ‘Another Mississippi Sunday Morning’. It is a sequel to 2023’s ‘Some Mississippi Sunday Morning’, a prison gospel album recorded at Parchman Farm maximum security prison’s Sunday gospel services. Twelve men participated in the sessions, aged between 23 and 74. Three of them are serving life sentences, while six were new inmates who did not participate on the original release. As with the first album, any artists’ proceeds benefit the prison chaplaincy service.
All the tracks were recorded live without any overdubs which, along with the tough lived experiences that are conveyed, give the album a rare rawness and intimacy. Knowing the background to this release makes it easy for the listener to project their own interpretation of the participants’ emotions but even without any such information, the opening track ‘Parchman Prison Blues’ would be a deeply affecting piece. A wordless, improvised a cappella hum, wail and lament by six of the men, it is an incredibly stirring evocation of regret and longing. Appropriately, ‘Open the Floodgates of Heaven (Let It Rain)’ was recorded as a storm raged. There is a tender quality to J. Hemphill’s interpretation of the source material. Aged 67, he has been serving a life sentence since he was in his early twenties and with its sumptuous piano backing this recording has the quality of a lost soul classic.
One of the recurring themes on this record is religion and faith. To an agnostic, it seems remarkable that people for whom life has been a harsh and bitter experience should be so keen to offer up thanks for their existence to a creator but the way in which it is done is compelling. ‘Grace Will Lead Me On’ is an organ-backed, spoken word account of family remembrance taking in recollections of hearing ‘Amazing Grace’ in childhood. ‘Living Testimony’ serves as a hymn of gratitude, a moving song giving thanks to the Lord for having food, shelter and still being alive. Like several tunes on the album including its predecessor, another spiritual ‘I Shall Not Want’ has no musical backing which serves to emphasise the raw but beautiful qualities of the solo voice. ‘I Won’t Complain’ has more of a beseeching, urgent quality to its vocal. A group effort, ‘God Is Keeping Me’ sees voices blending perfectly to a backdrop of handclaps.
Standing out stylistically, ‘MC Hammer’ sees 34-year-old J. Robinson who is also facing a life sentence delivering a rap with spiritual imagery (“The Holy Spirit dancing like MC Hammer”) to human beatbox accompaniment from L. Stevenson (31).
‘Po’ Child’ is an unaccompanied vocal performance, beginning as gospel soul and ending as spoken word taking in slavery and generations growing up fatherless. The minimal ‘Take Me To The King’ has a sparse, ominous drum beat and whispered, repeated mantra, “I don’t have much to bring / my heart’s torn to pieces / here’s my offering” which is utterly compelling.
Many of the thirteen tracks are very short. Both ‘Talking About My Jesus’ and the vocally broken ‘Stand For You’ weighing in two seconds short of a minute. The brevity and lack of padding give the songs an immediate impact. In contrast, the concluding song, ‘Jesus Wil Never Say No’ goes on a five-minute journey, a group number around the piano, its spirit and faith making for an uplifting finale.
‘Another Mississippi Sunday Morning’ is a celebration of the human voice and its capacity to strive for goodness even in circumstances of extreme adversity. It is an old-fashioned but richly emotional, astounding record.
Parchman Prison Prayer: Another Mississippi Sunday Morning – Out 17 January 2025 (Glitterbeat Records)
I was editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, and have subsequently written for a number of publications. While the zine was known for championing the most angular independent sounds, performing in recent years with a community samba percussion band helped to broaden my tastes so that in 2021 I am far more likely to be celebrating an eclectic mix of sounds and enthusing about Made Kuti, Anthony Joseph, Little Simz and the Soul Jazz Cuban compilations as well as Pom Poko and Richard Dawson.
