In this episode of Mississippi on the Map, Charlie Worsham journeys into the heart of the Mississippi Delta for an intimate, revealing conversation at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, where he meets members of the newly revived Parchman Band, a group of incarcerated musicians whose work is quietly transforming both their own lives and the culture around them. Through stories of childhood, church, family, and first encounters with music, Houston and LJ trace their paths from the Gulf Coast and Greenville to Parchman, where a historic prison band tradition has been reborn with new purpose, new voices, and a renewed sense of mission. As the conversation unfolds, Charlie explores how songwriting, rehearsal, and live performance have become tools for growth, connection, and healing inside the Mississippi prison farm, and how the band’s music now travels to audiences across the state, carrying with it a message of dignity, hope, and the belief that the future can be shaped not by the past, but by what comes next.

Mississippi Places Mentioned: Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman Farm), Mississippi Delta, Greenville, Clarksdale, Delta Blues Museum, Walnut Street Blues Bar (Greenville), Ocean Springs, Oxford, Grenada, Pascagoula, Moss Point, Jackson County.

People and Groups Mentioned: The Parchman Band, Alan Lomax, Son House, Bukka White, R.L. Burnside, Elvis Presley, Bobby Rush, B.B. King, Jimbo Mathus, Morgan Freeman, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Wendell Cannon.