Margo Price Follows in the Footsteps of Johnny Cash, Delivers Concert to Incarcerated Women at West Tennessee State Penitentiary

Photo: [L-R] Sean Thompson, Taylor Floreth, Margo Price, Alec Newnam, Logan Ledger

Margo Price is tracing the footsteps of country music predecessor, Johnny Cash. 

Last week, the musician and her band, Sean Thompson, Taylor Floreth, Alec Newnam, and Logan Ledger, performed a live show for a group of 400 incarcerated females at the Therapeutic Residential Center in Henning, Tenn.’s West Tennessee State Penitentiary. The performance represented an artist-led partnership with the state’s chapter of the Innocence Project. It will also serve as the foundation for a new live album and documentary about the experience.

Price regarded the opportunity as “one of the most important gigs of my career,” in an essay shared on her Substack. “They needed to hear the music, and I needed to deliver it…For about sixty minutes, we all became one with the music. There was undulation, dancing, cheering, smiling, weeping. I was moved to tears more than once, and even now, thinking back, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude…I learned more from Joyce and from the women inside those walls than I could ever put into words.”

As noted above, Price was also joined by spokesperson and activist Joyce Watson, who was recently exonerated for a crime she did not commit, after spending 27 years in confinement. The pair united in their goal to generate fresh opportunities for growth and education between incarcerated individuals and the public, to shed light on non-violent incarceration rates, and to further rehabilitation, conversation, and education-based activities that connect inmates with music. 

“I’ve always been drawn to the stories nobody wants to hear,” Price reflects. “The voices who’ve been silenced, the ones behind bars, behind closed doors, behind headlines. Years ago, I was living recklessly and making bad choices. I wound up spending a weekend in jail and even though my stay was short, it left a mark on me. It made me see how broken and unforgiving the system is, especially for folks without money, power, or a second chance.

Like Johnny Cash, I believe that music belongs in places where hope is running low. I want to share my songs with people who could use them the most. I want to raise my voice in a place where people may not have one. This isn’t about glamorizing crime or brushing aside accountability, it’s about dignity, prison reform and reminding people they’re still human. Music has the power to heal, to protest, to connect and that’s what this is all about.

If singing in a jail cell can bring light to injustice, I hope my voice and the six strings of my guitar can rattle the cage,” she shared. 

Price has recently made a habit of referencing music history while following in the footsteps of the greats. Besides the latest modeling after Cash, she released a homage to Bob Dylan’s cue-card featured “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” in her own video for “Don’t Wake Me Up.” 

Watch a highlight reel from Price’s time at West Tennessee State Penitentiary, below.