
The Midnight Special
The Secret Prison History of American Music
Colin Asher(Author)
WW Norton & Co (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 30. June 2026
Book
Hardback
336 pages
978-1-324-05139-8 (ISBN)
Description
In American popular music, we often glorify rebellious artists and "outlaws." But The Midnight Special reveals an untold story about the way criminal justice has impacted the lives and work of US musicians. Examining five pivotal albums, Colin Asher's narrative traces the history of twentieth-century incarceration from southern prison-farms to the heroin-driven drug war that villainized a generation of jazz artists to the dawn of mass incarceration. He argues that white artists, unlike their Black colleagues, often avoided severe punishment or even profited from jailtime. And he shows how prisons occasionally incubated talent, but more often shortened careers and distorted the public's perception of musicians and their value to society. With keen musical analysis and thrilling biographical portraits of Huddie Ledbetter, Elmo Hope, Johnny Cash, Ike White, and Tupac Shakur, The Midnight Special writes the history of prisons into American music-a story as important as it is overlooked.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
6 photographs
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
535 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-324-05139-8 (9781324051398)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Colin Asher is the author of the critically acclaimed Never a Lovely So Real. His work has been featured in the Believer, the Baffler, the New Republic, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.