Parchman Farm chords by Mose Allison

Mose Allison's "Parchman Farm" is distinct from earlier blues songs of the same name (all of which were about Mississippi State Penitentiary, a hard-time prison known as Parchman Farm). The song has been covered by a number of artists including Blue Cheer, Jeff Buckley, Cactus, Rick Derringer, Georgie Fame, The Kingston Trio, John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers (who released it as a Decca Records single in 1966,) Hot Tuna, and others. One of the greatest covers of this Mose Allison classic is by Blue Cheer, a pioneering three-piece psychedelic band formed in the late 60s and credited with being the "loudest band ever." The inspiration for the earlier blues songs of the same name was summarized by FolkWorld as follows: Sittin' over here on Parchman Farm, ain't ever done no man no harm... From its beginning in 1904 until reform finally came in the 1970s, the main purpose of Mississippi's state farm was not to rehabilitate or even to punish the convicts, but to make money by growing cotton. It closely resembled an antebellum plantation, with prisoners replacing slaves. Because the prisoners worked in organized gangs, Parchman became a kind of preserve for group work songs, which scholars consider an influence on the blues. Booker T. Washington Bukka White, an older cousin of B.B. King. Robert Palmer, told an interviewer in 1963 that he had been treated better inside Parchman than he often was after his release. As a musician he had avoided much of the hard work in the prison. David Kimbrough told Living Blues, I got down there and I was out there workin' in the fields, you know, choppin' grass. And so I was singin' and a guad said, 'You need to get in the Parchman band.' I was always off the farm there with the band. We was gone every weekend, sometimes whole weeks. You could have your beer or whatever, get you a little sex or whatever you want to do out there, you know. http://www.folkworld.eu/26/e/nshift08.html Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.