Blackjack County Chains

A country song written by Red Lane and first recorded as “Blackjack County Chain” (singular) by Willie Nelson on February 22, 1967 for RCA Victor, produced by Chet Atkins. The lyric is told by a member of a Georgia chain gang who joins his fellow prisoners in killing a brutal sheriff with the thirty-five-pound chains they are bound by. Lane had first offered the song to Charley Pride, who declined the material as too controversial. Nelson’s single reached #24 on Billboard’s country chart before many stations pulled it from rotation over its violent content. Nelson re-cut it as a duet with Waylon Jennings on Take It to the Limit (1983), and the Del McCoury Band brought it into the bluegrass repertoire on The Cold Hard Facts (1996).