From the Cold Jaws of Prison

Inmates and Ex-inmates of three prisons - Attica, Rikers Island, and the Tombs

Folkways Records – FH 5403

Format: Vinyl, LP
Country: United States
Released: 1971
Genre: Rock, Jazz, & World
Style: Rock, & Spoken
[Tracklist]
A1 Cathedral (03:09)
A2 The Junkie (02:45)
A3 A Word to the Hip (03:37)
A4 Daddy, Daddy Come Dig Me (06:51)
A5 Lord I Want to Be a Christian (03:22)
B1 An Open Letter (08:04)
B2 I'm a Dreamer (04:10)
B3 Screaming (04:37)
B4 He Arose (03:47)
[Credits]
Producer: Attilio J. Cantore and Soul Rock from the Rock, Inc., Designer: Irwin Rosenhouse
[Notes]
"What you will hear on this recording is a cry of a people for justice and human dignity. You don't know what freedom is unless you've experienced the chains from which to break free." The poems and music presented on this album were written and compiled by African-American inmates and ex-inmates of three prisons in the New York system—Attica, Rikers Island, and the Tombs. Their work speaks not only of the conditions faced in prison but to the broader African American experience outside prison walls where "Down went the junkie with the monkey on his back, the white world laughed because the junkie was Black."