The Marshall Project

The Marshall Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system.

A black-and-white photo of a group of musicians dressed in white, with some wearing cowboy hats, standing in a horseshoe shap

Culture

The Bootlegging, Blues Singing Star of 1930s Prison Radio

This essay, originally written by Maurice Chammah, is an edition of Redemption Songs, a limited-run newsletter from The Marshall Project that dives into the music produced in prisons over the last century. Sign up now to get a song by incarcerated artists delivered to your inbox each Sunday through