Carson Robison

He felt he was familiar and comfortable with that kind of music.

He had a guy he worked with named Carson Robinson, who was a singer-songwriter that had written some songs that Dalhart recorded, although they were more in the minstrelsy tradition or the blackface tradition or, and apologies for using the terminology, but what was called coon songs at the time.

And they were, you know, going for that market.

And then this opportunity falls in their lap and they record a version of Wreck of the Old 97.

So when you hear that song, imagine somebody singing that in prison and how memorable that would be.

Anyway, the two of them shape it into a song, bring it into the studio.

Carson Robinson plays on it, had a little trio with Vernon Dalhart, and they record it and they release it, and it becomes an absolute phenomenon.

If you buy any of those compilations, or you don't need to buy them anymore, if you stream one of those compilations, like the biggest hit records of the 1920s, if they go year by year, multiple of those compilations will select the Prisoner song as the biggest song of 1924.