The Prisoner’s Song

“The Prisoner’s Song” is a prison lament of disputed authorship, copyrighted in 1924 by Guy Massey, who told the San Antonio Light in 1926 that he wrote it in 1924. Massey’s cousin Vernon Dalhart first recorded the song for Victor on August 13, 1924. Dalhart cut it as the B-side to “The Wreck of the Old 97,” with Carson Robison on guitar and Lou Raderman on viola, and the record became country music’s first major hit. Some scholars hypothesize that it draws on earlier folk songs. Its line about “the wings of an angel” and “prison walls” gave Albert E. Brumley the idea for “I’ll Fly Away.” Later recordings include Wilf Carter (Bluebird 33-0503, 1942), Jimmie Davis (Decca 5966, 1941), and Bill Monroe & his Bluegrass Boys (Decca 46314, 1951).