The Purse

 

The Purse (direct link)

From the album “Live At Folsom Prison”  recorded
at The Julia Tutwiler Prison For Women, Wetumpka, Alabama, USA

Mega Records, 1970 

 The full album is available HERE

 

Note: Rest assured, sensitive souls, women behind the bars photographied by Bill Forshee were not actual inmates. They were models. 

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On January 13, 1968 Johnny Cash recorded his legendary concert album “At Folsom Prison” within the walls of that California penitentiary. It is considered by many to be the greatest live concert recording ever released.  Hoping to replicate Cash’s success, rockabilly performer Mack Vickery traveled to Wetumpka, Alabama in 1970 and recorded a live concert album at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women.

Mad Magazine, in Septembre 1971, published a two-page funny parody describing six imaginary "Prison" record albums of the future featuring Jim Nabors at the Lexington Narcotics Center), Wayne Newton at the Charles St. Police Station in Greenwich Village, Englebert Humperdick at the Berkeley Jail, Connie Francis at the Philadelphia Home for Wayward Girls, Kate Smith at a Georgia Chain Gang and The King Sisters at Matawan Prison For the Criminally Insane.

For tracklisting, see pictures below.

 

 

As predicted, several albums recorded in prison followed : B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Freddy Fender, Big Mama Thornton, Leona Williams and Sonny James, to name but a few.   

But in 1971, Glen Sherley made history as the first person to record an album inside a prison as a prisoner.