About this Event
In The Midnight Special, Colin Asher explores America’s rich tradition of music behind bars, from blues to hip-hop. In popular music, rebellious artists and “outlaws” get glorified, but Asher tells a deeper story about the criminal justice system’s impact on our musicians, through portraits of artists from Lead Belly to Johnny Cash to Tupac Shakur. “The book underlines sheer human resiliency” (The New York Times, Editor’s Choice Pick). Asher, a former fellow at the Leon Levy Center for Biography, is also the author of the acclaimed Never a Lovely So Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren. He speaks about the new book with Leon Levy Biography Fellow Jefferson Cowie, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and a professor at Vanderbilt University who writes on American politics, labor, and race.
Presented with the Leon Levy Center for Biography.
Event venue & nearby stays
Elebash Recital Hall, The Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue, New York, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.