Arts & Entertainment
Chicago Gallery to Play Records and Other Recordings Created Inside Midwest Prisons and Jails
A selection of the records set to be played at Walls Turned Sideways on June 12, 2026. (Josh MacPhee)
The year is 1970 and 2,117 incarcerated people have gathered in the yard of Cook County Jail.
Before the crowd, an emcee gives thanks to the “beloved” sheriff and a “dear friend,” the chief justice of the criminal court. Both names are met with a chorus of boos. Then a third name was announced: B.B. King. A loud applause ensues.
King’s “Live in Cook County Jail” performance is just one of several vinyls recorded in Midwest jails and prisons that will be spun at the gallery Walls Turned Sideways on June 12. The listening session is a collaboration between Chicago-based artist Marc Fischer and Josh MacPhee, a founding member of the Brooklyn-based Interference Archive, which collects cultural materials produced by social movements.
The artists’ prison records range from organist Jimmy McGriff to the Triton College Jazz Band playing Frank Zappa songs at Cook County Jail. Some records come from an Indiana prison, where a reverend came to record a spiritual jazz album with incarcerated musician Ernest Howard. Others are field recordings of prison labor songs, backed by the clanging of people working and hammering at rocks.
“I was interested in all of these different chains of collaboration, including with the record labels, to release this music by people who don’t get to leave to play concerts,” Fischer said.
After the live listening event, a group discussion will allow audience members to debrief the music. The venue consistently focuses on formerly and currently incarcerated artists, and Fischer said there might be a different perspective to some of the material the artists wouldn’t hear otherwise.
“These things really come alive when you have an audience that’s interested and engaged, and they sort of leap off the physical object and become whole experiences again,” MacPhee said.
These recordings are primarily from the ‘70s, when MacPhee said that certain prisons offered more recreation, arts and music programming, as compared to today.
Entertainment directors, employed by prisons, would book musicians to play shows. Some incarcerated people could get a temporary release to record in a studio, then return to prison, MacPhee said.
Mass incarceration policies implemented around the ‘70s greatly expanded the prison population in the U.S. through the War on Drugs, tough on crime policies and ever-lengthier sentences.
“It’s only through the post 70’s war on crime, the explosion of the prison population, and the justification of that explosion through the sort of demonization of people in prison that you start to see the removal of [artistic opportunities],” MacPhee said.
Since then, both the genre and production of the music from behind walls has changed dramatically. Prison recordings now are often hip-hop. The incarcerated person will perform their vocals over a recorded call, then someone outside will lay it on top of a beat. Macphee said the physicality of prison records from decades ago makes them more distinct.
“The level of production and relationships necessary for these physical objects to get created is a different social phenomenon,” MacPhee said. “To either get a band inside or to get all of the members inside to be in the same room and record together, then mix that down to get it to a pressing plant, to produce a cover, then distribute it — it’s a whole different ball game.”
Inside Audio: Vinyl Records Recorded in Midwest Jails and Prisons, will be held from 6:30-8:30 p.m. on June 12 at Walls Turned Sideways, 2717 W. Madison St.
WTTW News arts coverage is supported by the JCS Arts, Health & Education Fund of the DuPage Foundation.
Contact Blair Paddock: @blairpaddock.bsky.social | [email protected]
