You Better Stay Off Ol' Parchman Farm

Part of our Prison Songs project - see www.citiesandmemory.com/prisonsongs for full details.

Reimagined version of Old Dollar Mamie by Fernando Ramalho.

"There’s a sense of ambiguity in these chain gang songs. On the one hand, the brutal oppression; on the other hand the joy of singing together. I tried to capture that duality with two droning guitars that, at some point, melt with the original recording. The title –‘You better stay off ol' Parchman Farm’ – is a line by Bukka White, from his song ‘Parchman Farm’, the Mississippi State Penitentiary where White was a prisoner and Alan Lomax recorded several prison songs."