Following the brilliant Hillbillies In Hell series, Iron Mountain Analogue Research has announced a new compilation of prison ballads recorded between 1956 and 1972. Titled The Hangman’s Blues, the sixteen tracks in this collection were originally issued on 45s, mostly on obscure or private-press labels, and are re-released here for the first time.

Many of these tracks can be traced to the controversial case of Caryl Chessman, who, in 1960, became the first modern American executed for a non-lethal kidnapping. As the press release notes, these “declarations of innocence, profound diatribes of capital punishment and mournful mournful odes to that Last Mile” are an important, oft forgotten footnote in the story of country music.