The last time I was in the Belknap Country Jail in Laconia, I was visiting my roommate from college, who, instead of breaking down kegs of beer with us on the weekends, left on Friday afternoons to become just another inmate at the county jail.
That was part of his sentence for his stupidity, weekends in jail for an entire semester, then a longer stint when the school year ended.
That was over 20 years ago.
So, when Dr. Jack Polidoro from Belmont mentioned that he and some other musicians would be playing a special concert for the inmates at Belknap in a few days, I jumped at the chance to get back inside.
Yes, Johnny Cash’s famous live prison concert album, “Folsom Prison Blues” played into my curiosity. But I didn’t expect to see a recreation of the historic 1968 event. I was curious to see if the spirit of Cash would reappear in the clouds gathered round the pink sunset that hung over the barbed wired bullpen area.
As the first batch of minimum security female inmates made their way into the pen, each in matching green prison garb, it didn’t take but five seconds to see the elation in their smiling faces. Not just because they were outside breathing clean air on a gorgeous summer night.
Because they were being treated to something other than their own bad luck.
It was a pedicure of sorts, minus the toe rub.
The women came in all ages and sizes, some young, still sporting a flowing lock of highlighted hair, others carrying a hard-lined expression that made them a perfect fit for this joint.
Then the men came into the yard, twenty of them, and they appeared equally thankful to be freed from the chocking scent of incarceration.
And like men do, they played the hard guy as they took their seats next to the ladies, who, like women, pretended the men sitting five-feet next to them didn’t even exist.
It was starting to feel like a real mixer.
Rob and Patsy, an older hippy couple played some great old hippy tunes. And knowingly or not, the inmates, who I doubt rocked out to the “Mama and the Papa’s” before they did the deed that got them done, seemed to know ever line to Bob Dylan’s, “Make You Feel My Love.”
And when Percy Hill and Leon Garretson started singing about Whisky Mama and daddy’s deep deviled blues, well, everyone seemed to settle into the night, forgetting about where they were, how they got there or when and if they’d ever get out.
They knew this song cold. And felt it.
As the pink sky disappeared into the foothills, Dr. Jack took the stage and delivered the perfect song on a perfect night to the perfect audience, “Pancho and Lefty” by Townes Van Zandt.
Livin’ on the road my friend
Is gonna keep you free and clean
And now you wear your skin like iron
And your breath is hard as kerosene
Some of the inmates sat rubbing their neck, patiently sitting through the performances. Others grabbed for the spotlight, giving it their best to make an impression on the ladies by shouting louder than the other inmates.
Just being their goofy selves. Like anyone.
Pastor Deb played and she was special. There was something about the way the men and women looked at Deb as she sang that made them shed their angry skin. As if Deb was, maybe, the only person in the world they could trust and believe in.
And while Pastor Deb belted out the chorus to the “4 Non Blondes” major hit, “What’s Going On?” everyone in the bullpen sang loud and proud, as if they were in the midst of a kitchen jam with a bunch of friends and plenty of libations and nothing but love for one another.
Locked into the moment, I could have wept.
Sitting in a folding chair in the front row, an inmate named Tyler, maybe 40, strong, black and seemingly kind, listened hard to the quiet songs about screwing up and digging your way out. He threw his arms out wide when a song about beating the odds emerged.
Tyler has been in county for the past six months, still waiting on a court date for whatever he did. But tonight, as Tyler said, “is the best thing that’s happened to me since I been in jail. It’s really blowing my mind.”
Yup, music will ease a troubled mind.
As will freedom.
– Rob Azevedo
Rob Azevedo, from Manchester, has been hosting a weekly radio show called “Granite State of Mind” for the past three and a half years which showcases musicians from around New Hampshire and beyond. “Granite State of Mind” is an hour long program that features artists performing live in-studio each week, now exclusively on WKXL. Azevedo also writes a weekly music column called “Sound Check” for the Concord Monitor and hosts a monthly “Artist in the Round” style series at New England College in Concord.
