10 Musicians Who Committed Real Crimes, Did Real Time - And Had Real Impact

Time spent in jail doubtless influenced the work of Lead Belly and Son House, but one of the definitive statements on the subject comes originally from Bukka White, who wrote Parchman Farm Blues. Unlike perhaps the most famed of all artists to sing about life in prison Johnny Cash - who never actually spent more than a night in jail – Bukka White’s tale of the notorious was based on his experience there.

He was sentenced in 1939 for an incident where he shot a man in the thigh. It is likely a simple product of the violent times in which they lived that many talented musicians ended up incarcerated and little surprise, then, that this was where the Lomaxes found White and recorded two tracks with him before his release in 1940.

On Parchman Farm Blues he truly captured the loneliness, isolation and determination he and many others felt in the tough prisons of the time:

'Oh, goodbye wife, all you have done gone, but I hope some day, you will hear my lonesome song. I'm down on Parchman farm, but I sho' wanna go back home, but I hope some day, I will overcome.'

A cousin of B.B. King, White helped the blues legend begin his career, and got his own chance once again decades later, touring as far as Europe in the 1960s and '70s before dying in 1977. His most famous song was covered by Mose Allison, John Mayall (with Eric Clapton) and many others