Penitentiary Blues [SEP] performer
Penitentiary Blues
Penitentiary Blues is the debut album of American singer David Allan Coe. It was released in 1970 on SSS International Records.
Style.
The lyrics of "Penitentiary Blues" are often dark and foreshadow the content of Coe's later country albums, discussing themes such as working for the first time, blood tests from veins used to inject heroin, prison time, hoodoo imagery and death. 
AllMusic's Thom Jurek describes the album's style as "voodoo blues", writing "This is redneck music
Legendary Shack Shakers, a rockabilly and blues band he formed in Murray, Kentucky, in the mid 1990s. Before forming the band, Wilkes was a performer on the paddle wheeler Paducah Jubilee. He also played harmonica for the neo-vaudeville act "Popularity Showboat". His first live, professional performance was with the group at the Kentucky State Penitentiary.
Regarding the Shack Shaker's "southern gothic" lyricism, Billboard Magazine said "(Wilkes writes) mind-blowing lyrics rife with Biblical references and ruminations of life