Culture, Interview, Narratives, Uncategorized

Another Hopeful Sunday Morning: An Interview with Ian Brennan

If it seems little time has passed since the previous interview with award-winning producer, Ian Brennan about his work in Parchman Prison, you’re not wrong. Merely one year on from recording the critically-acclaimed first album, Some Mississippi Sunday Morning,  Brennan returned to Parchman in early 2024 to record Another Mississippi Sunday Morning. He joins Afropean.com once more to discuss the project’s evolution, making headway in a saturated market and why he appreciates virtuosity without ego.

 

AP: What made you decide to return to the Prison so soon? Was it easier to arrange and could you spend more time recording on this occasion, in the wake of the first record’s success

IB: To avoid redundancy, I try not to do things unless there’s an identifiable reason to do them. It would be hypocritical to make records just to make them. With Parchman, I never imagined doing the second record because we didn’t even know the first album would be a record. The response was so strong to the first album, that the idea [for a second] didn’t really come about until then. It began to seem like something that would be worth exploring further. As it turned out, there were a lot of the same men, plus six new men. It ended up being a smaller group than for the first record. The prison did give us more time and freedom. I was actually alone with the prisoners, with no chaplain or guard…

 

AP: That was going to be the next question.  Why did you choose not to have guards or chaplains present this time

IB: I didn’t choose. It’s just the way it was. It was fine. There’s a bit of a hierarchy structure. There’s a young inmate who apparently works directly with the superintendent. He has a lot of responsibility. Then of course, there are the veteran men. They have a lot of authority and respect because they know and have survived the system. We recorded for four hours in total. We had a meal and then I had to go; so did they. The new person in charge of the state prison system, and the new person in charge of the prison itself were both very enthusiastic. The state administrator was very excited because he saw it on the local news.

It’s kind of interesting. [The first album] got a lot of attention, especially for a small non-commercial record. We had a big feature on the BBC culture page, in The Guardian and features in the New York Times and The New Yorker. Even if you have a big time publicist you’d rarely get any of those, let alone a bunch of them. Yet it wasn’t that [which caught the administrator’s attention].  I don’t think they were even aware. It was only when their local television news guy went in and did two positive stories about it. The authorities were thrilled, as they’ve been trying to improve conditions and show that they are doing things for the inmates.

Parchman Prison Blues

AP: What, if any, were the main differences you encountered this time, especially with the inmates themselves

IB: I think there was more trust. When I say trust, I don’t mean there was a lot of suspicion on either side originally. It was just being more familiar with how it’s going to be done. The biggest [difference], aside from some of the new people, was that they had written a lot of original material. They were readier in that sense. 

AP: How much notice did they have about the second recording? Was it the inmates idea to have you back

IB:I don’t know the answer to that question. It was planned three months before I got there. Everybody that participated, did it because they wanted to. They were very ready with those songs. In fact, Mr Hemphill – who’s going to be 67 and has been [at Parchman] nearly his entire adult life – was not on the first record, aside from the final track. However, he’s really featured and stands out on the second album. For me, he’s sort of the centre of this record. 

AP: The first record has received glowing reviews from the BBC, Mojo and UK Jazz News, amongst others. What has surprised you most about the reaction to the first record? Are you surprised

IB: I don’t really ever expect anything. I was surprised that there would be a record label. The one [Parchman] is with, Glitterbeat,  was surprising because they had not done a Gospel record before. But to me, it’s more than a Gospel record. It’s also something other; a Folk and a Blues record. 

 

AP: But Gospel and the Blues…they’re more than cousins, they’re sibling genres… 

IB: Yeah, absolutely. I wouldn’t have expected that [success] but the men deserve it and more. It was nevertheless unexpected because of the nature of the media landscape. It’s worsening and intensifying by the day. It’s different from even when the first record came out. 

 

Prison Grounds (c) Marilena Umuhoza Delli

AP: Why do you believe the landscape is worse

IB: It’s the over-saturation. Over 100,000 songs a day are uploaded now to Spotify. That’s the number of records that used to be put out in a year during the 1980s. For example, Amazon has imposed a limit, so people can only [self]-publish three AI books a day. People are never competing as much against quality as they’re competing against the sheer volume now. Many things have been saved by crate-diggers in the past. Some of that can be weird and neo-colonial when people go to other continents, find old records and reissue them. Who knows who really owns it? But a lot of it is music lovers, who stumble across a record and go ‘There’s this Jazz artist from 1950 and they were great’.

So, it’s amazing for me that the first [Parchman] album got this amount of attention. Increasingly, the records we’ve been doing get less and less. The big stuff, The New York Times and NPR, that sort of thing, is almost unreachable now. It’s all become determined by cliques. You see it in the news too. All the editorial content has become more and more sensationalist and tabloid-like. There’s stuff the BBC now covers which they would have turned their nose up at 10 years ago. In some ways that’s good, since maybe they did that too much. In other ways, the standards are just gone.

 

AP: You said in the previous interview that you prefer unpolished performances. Specifically you said…’...consumerist society denies people their own musicality by making them focus on being good and performative…’ However, some of the men, notably L.Brown, are clearly of a professional level, arguably with a sense of the performative. How do you reconcile the desire to record these more seasoned vocalists with your preference for the raw

IB:I think it’s about the spectrum. It’s not about me, in the sense that I try to be open to what’s there. It’s more about feeling it. That’s the gauge for me a lot of the time.  A lot of people who are performative, on a surface level it’s great. I can appreciate more people than not would probably like that more than the other stuff I like.

I also love virtuosity when it’s really devoid of ego. Of the people we’ve worked with, [Pakistani vocalist] Ustad Saami is one of the better examples.  To my ears, what Saami does is very similar to what the men in Parchman Prison do or what The Good Ones in Rwanda do. They are really honest in how they sing. Obviously, I’m partial to the Parchman inmates but many of them are extremely virtuosic. So for me, it’s not hard to reconcile…when a singer is a hundred percent devoted to communicating, there’s no mirror in it: ‘I’m trying to get attention or praise’. I think that’s especially important with Gospel singing. After the commercial success that developed with Mahalia Jackson, many Gospel singers…they’re great but there’s a lot of show-boaty stuff. I understand why people like it but I don’t think it’s as powerful. 

 

AP: For those inmates who have a more natural inclination towards music as vocalists and or musicians, what have you observed on your visits generally about their relationship towards their gifts

IB: It falls fairly strongly along the lines of age. Just like with everyone, the dream of making it big or being a musician are probably stronger when you’re younger. With the older gentlemen, there’s certainly a humility to what they’re doing at that age. The men like Mr. Hemphill and Mr. Palmer who are in their 60s, I sense almost no ego. It’s just what they do. Some of the younger guys… in a fairer world, someone like Mr. Stephenson, who’s sadly serving a life sentence, would be a professional musician. He can play the piano, he can sing, he can play bass like James Jamerson, he’s really good…Then there’s Mr Sherman, who’s also in his 60s. His vocals to me are some of the best. He was struggling physically on recording day. You could hear it a little in his voice but the performance is not hindered by that. What he’s doing is so pure and so steeped in experience. These are songs he sang as a little kid; decades and decades… it’s second nature to him. Within the context of the prison, it becomes a sacred space for the inmates. Not just because of the religious element but as a space to have community and feel freedom. I don’t know what it’s like on a typical Sunday but that day we were there, they were free within the confines of that building. The music really is a solace to them.

M. Palmer (c) Marilena Umuhoza Delli

AP: Amongst the new inmates with whom you worked, are there any particular moments or stories that stand out

IB: There’s Mr. Jackson. You hear his voice on a lot of the songs doing background, encouraging people…If you recognise his distinctive voice, you’ll hear him here and there. The track he does, Po’ Child, is something he wrote as a poet. He’s new, relatively young and sadly, also serving a life sentence. He’s more overtly political and a pretty strong presence.  On Po’ Child, he so articulately nails the whole problem with the prison industrial complex, yet in a way that’s not preachy. With me growing up in the San Francisco Bay area, there were always these bands that were ‘right-on’ in terms of politics but they were horrible. It was like a textbook set to music. [By contrast] I think Mr Jackson’s track is so powerful, especially for someone who’s not talking about it from the outside looking in but from the inside.

AP: Do you plan to continue recording in the prison in future

IB: Well, I don’t know. I have faith in terms of people who are worthy. Sadly, if I were to go back this February, there would probably be some new people too. In a way that’s very disheartening but there’s something about that area of Mississippi itself that historically is so musical. Who knows why that is but it’s incredible. B.B King grew up an hour from there. Muddy Waters two hours from there. Bessie Smith died right there in the next town…

Mc Hammer

AP: That’s a reflection of US history. The country was built on the blood, sweat and tears of African-Americans, as well as the indigenous population. Plus, Mississippi having a high Afrodescendant population, it makes sense those things overlap…

IB: [It has] the highest black population in the US…Whether I go back [to Parchman], I just don’t know. I try to continue relationships with the people we’ve worked with. Because they’re collectives, it’s not like you can have a relationship with 60 people. It’s about trying to keep a connection with someone in the group. We hope to do what we can to maintain a relationship with the people at Parchman.

 

AP: There’s also a literary collection by Parchman inmates that has very recently been published. Are you aware of this development and if so, what do you make of it

IB: I wasn’t aware. I would imagine it’s probably related to the new administration and the work they’ve been trying to do. I’m happy to hear about [the collection], in theory. ‘In theory’, meaning sometimes people do projects that are well-intended but perhaps they don’t show the subjects in the best possible light. Sometimes the idea goes ahead, whereas we try as much as we can to let the music dictate. We always go not knowing there’ll be a record and not releasing something unless we believe in it. That doesn’t mean we’re right. There are many records we haven’t released…but I’m hopeful about [the book]. I’m sure that a lot of it is great.  I love literature.

 

(This is an edited version of an interview that also appears on the I Was Just Thinking…blog)

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