THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL THE SECRET PRISON HISTORY OF AMERICAN MUSIC COLIN ASHER - AUTHOR OF : NEVER A LOVELY SO REAL

Hamptons JazzFest in association with Canio's Cultural Cafe and LTV Studios presents

THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL: THE SECRET PRISON HISTORY OF AMERICAN MUSIC

An Author Talk and Q&A with Colin Asher

Sunday July 12th @ 4PM at LTV Studios

An urgent book about the ways music can affirm an individual’s sense of humanity in dehumanizing circumstances, The Midnight Special writes the history of prisons into American music—a story as important as it is overlooked. This innovative history explores the rich tradition of music behind bars and shows how policing and prisons have shaped our musical culture from blues to hip-hop. In American popular music, we often glorify rebellious artists and “outlaws.” But in The Midnight Special, Colin Asher tells a deeper story about the criminal justice system’s impact on our musicians, explored through compelling portraits of five artists whose careers span the twentieth century. Opening with folk and blues artist Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, who was made to perform wearing prison clothes, Asher traces the intertwined histories of music and incarceration, from Southern prison farms of the Jim Crow era, through the heroin-driven mid-century drug wars that villainized a generation of jazz artists, and to our present era of mass incarceration.
Colin Asher is the author of the critically acclaimed Never a Lovely So Real. His work has been featured in the Believer, the Baffler, the New Republic, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. A book signing and Meet The Author Q&A follows the presentation.

$20 General Admission in advance / $25 at the door / $45 VIP Reserved Front Row includes complimentary drink ticket

!!ALL TICKETS INCLUDE ADMISSION TO THE CYRUS CHESTNUT JAZZ PIANO CONCERT AT 6PM!!