Jail Guitar Doors: Taking guitars and songwriting behind bars

Next month, I’ll be starting a program to teach guitar and songwriting to women inmates at the Travis County Correctional Complex as part of the Jail Guitar Doors program.

This will be the first time the program is offered to women in the U.S., and I could not be more honored to lead it.

If you’re not familiar with JGD (and most aren’t — yet), here’s a quick history:

In 1978, The Clash released the song, “Jail Guitar Doors.” The song tells the story of the imprisonment of their fellow musician Wayne Kramer. In 2007, to honor the life of Clash founder, Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg launches an initiative in England to provide musical equipment used to rehabilitate inmates serving time in Her Majesty’s Prisons in the United Kingdom. His initiative is named for that very same song, “Jail Guitar Doors.” In 2009, Wayne Kramer partners with Billy Bragg to found Jail Guitar Doors USA. Together, their combined effort continues the mission for prisoners in America.

There it is: JGD partners with prisons to bring music behind bars. Through music, inmates have another way of telling their story and expressing themselves in non-violent ways.

Outside of prison walls, JGD advocates for prison reform here in the U.S. We have 5% of the world’s population, but 23% of the world’s inmates—and African-American and Hispanic populations are disproportionately incarcerated, often for non-violent crimes.

Why? Follow the money, follow the power structure—the stuff of Ph.D. dissertations and well beyond the scope of this short post.

Here’s the thing, though: those of us on the outside spend very little time thinking about the effect of prison on individuals and the culture at large. And I’ve been as guilty as anyone on this front.

So when the invitation to head this program found its way to me, I jumped at the chance. The timing was right on a personal level, and the mission filled me with personal purpose. The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention, in fact.

I’ve passed the background check, I’ve gotten my clearance, I’ve had my first orientation in jail. We’re down to the details of scheduling and starting.

I’ll post updates on the experience, with gratitude for the opportunity. I can’t imagine what I’ll get to learn along the way.

Here’s a shot of the crowd from last year’s Bookwoman “SX North Lamar” showcase during 2012 SXSW. It was an amazing line-up of women artists, and I’m jazzed to be back in the line-up for this year. 3/16/13 at Bookwoman on North Lamar in Austin.

I had more verses [to Coal Miner’s Daughter]. Owen Bradley said, ‘Loretta, there’s already been one El Paso and we’ll never have another one. Get in that room and start taking some of those verses off.’ Yeah, I took six verses off.” — Loretta Lynn

We were hot and sweaty, and it was the last song of the night, but “Nothing But Love” sounded great, thanks to friend Josh Thelin. It was shot at Momo’s in Austin, TX at the end of 2011. Man, I miss that club.

Patronism: An Incredible Idea for Artist Sustainability

Musicians can barely scrape together a living, even if they work all the time. This is not news, but in case you’re just hearing this for the first time…

Content has become radically devalued in a world of free downloads (which is cool if the artist wants to do this; I do it), and piracy (which is not at all cool, imo). More on this to come in other posts.

“Pay to play” has become the norm in markets like Los Angeles. It’s a horrifying practice in which artists will be booked if they pay the venue for the time up front. Their only chance of breaking even is to sell a ton of tickets in advance.

This nightmare has extended to “booking” agencies across the country that troll websites looking for artists who’d like to be guaranteed bookings — again, for a fee and a promise of selling lots of tix in advance. I’ve gotten those pitches in my inbox.

Delete.

But Patronism is an altogether different model, and I love it. Fans (“patrons”) pay whatever they want — as little as $2 a month, less than the cost of a coffee at Starbucks. In exchange, they have unfettered access to all of an artist’s publicly released material, as well as scads of patron-only exclusive content.

Crazy, huh?

Check out their “about us” page (link in the title above).