James Carter (December 18, 1925 – November 26, 2003) was an American amateur singer and several times an inmate of the Mississippi prison system. He was paid $20,000, and credited, for a four-decade-old lead-vocalist performance used in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
In 1959, Carter was serving time at Camp B of the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, Mississippi. In a southern field excursion, Carter and the other prisoners in his chain gang were spending the day chopping wood. Folk music historian Alan Lomax encountered them, and Carter and the others agreed to be recorded, as soloist and chorus respectively on an old spiritual, "Po' Lazarus", chopping the logs in time to the music. The recording and a photograph of the prisoners became part of Lomax's seminal music archive.
Decades later, the recording was purchased for use in the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, which went on to win a Grammy for Album of the Year. During this, the producers, working in the hope that Carter was still alive, successfully tracked him down. Despite never seeing the film and not even remembering the song he had sung over 40 years previously, Carter was pleased with the album's success, and was present at the benefit concert held in Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, which featured repeat performances by the performers of other numbers on the soundtrack (although Carter himself did not perform).
As the other prisoners have not been identified (and likely never will be), the official credit for the artist on the soundtrack is for "James Carter & the Prisoners".
Carter died November 26, 2003, in Chicago, at age 77.
Famous quotes containing the words james, carter and/or prisoners:
“There can be no difference anywhere that doesn’t make a difference elsewhere—no difference in abstract truth that doesn’t express itself in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere, and somewhen.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“The respect for human rights is one of the most significant advantages of a free and democratic nation in the peaceful struggle for influence, and we should use this good weapon as effectively as possible.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Your notions of friendship are new to me; I believe every man is born with his quantum, and he cannot give to one without robbing another. I very well know to whom I would give the first place in my friendship, but they are not in the way, I am condemned to another scene, and therefore I distribute it in pennyworths to those about me, and who displease me least, and should do the same to my fellow prisoners if I were condemned to a jail.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)