20 months making music in Prison
A year and a half ago we launched our Prison Project, making music with the incarcerated in weekly rehearsals at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction in Northampton for men and the Western Massachusetts Women’s Correctional Facility in Chicopee.
Our routine is simple. We arrive and set up the gear, a keyboard, a small amp, and occasionally a mic. We’re usually in the visiting room in the men’s prison, which has wonderful acoustics and a natural reverb. Voices bounce warmly off cinder block walls. In the women’s prison, it’s a 2nd floor classroom with ample sunlight. The singers arrive and we warm up our voices with a few scales to piano, a ritual identical to the Young@Heart’s. Then we dive right in.
Songs are chosen by the inmates, lots of newer R&B, some Rock. Occasionally we introduce a tune no one knows. The women gravitate to Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, the men are singing songs by Mario, Jagged Edge, Sisqo, Justin Bieber, Force M.D.’s, Jack Johnson. We bring lyric sheets, but no sheet music. Ken learns the songs in advance. On the first run through, Bob usually invites a soloist to sing lead. Many times we run through it together, a chorus of voices, everyone free to experiment and harmonize, find our way into the song.
There’s structure, to the rehearsals and the songs, but there’s also a free flow, low stakes, fun vibe. People laugh, smile, and sometimes cry. It’s amazing how quick a song can tap our inner emotion and lay it bear in the room. Searching for an outlet, it finds the path of least resistance in song. We have a lot of regulars, some we’ve seen since the beginning. Others we’ve only seen once. Every six months or so, when the time feels right, we whittle the songs down to the best 10–12 gems, and schedule a concert, to be performed in the prison by the inmates, backed by the Young@Heart Chorus and Band.
Then, there’s a change, as we beckon the singers forward, to memorize the lyrics, to own the song. As soon as they realize they will be standing before their peers, in public, many for the first time in their lives, alone on the microphone, they take ownership and rise to the occasion showing tremendous courage, determination, and commitment. It’s impressive. So far, we’ve had two concerts at the Northampton Jail, in May and October of last year, and one at the Chicopee facility last November, each of them riveting performances. We bring our soundman Dan Richardson and a full, professional sound system. It’s a real concert and the results have been astounding.
We’re committed to the project through June 2017. In the audience at our April 15th 2016 concert we welcomed two of the original members, Danny Chagnon and Chris Barre, both of whom graced this same stage last year and are now free, back out in the world. Special thanks to Sheriff Garvey, Melinda Cady, Adrienne Osborne, and Demetra Balis, without whom none of this would be possible.
The Y@H Prison Project is supported by The Janey Fund, The Beveridge Foundation, Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, Grace Jones Richardson Trust, The Davis Foundation, Holyoke Cultural Council, Chicopee Cultural Council, Westfield Cultural Council, Northampton Arts Council, and over 500 individual donors on Kickstarter.
