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Stevie Wonder and James Brown Put This Prison Funk Band on the Map

Listen if you like: Sly and the Family Stone, Ohio Players, Heatwave, and Stevie Wonder

The 1970s were a golden age for music made in American prisons. During that decade, the composer, singer and guitarist Ike White released an album from his California prison that earned him comparisons to Jimi Hendrix. The Escorts released hit records from their New Jersey prison that would later be sampled by Public Enemy and J Dilla. Following the success of Johnny Cash’s 1968 album “At Folsom Prison,” tons of other stars put out their own live prison LPs, from Eddie Palmieri to B.B. King to Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton.

But one stellar prison band of the 1970s has been largely forgotten, which is surprising when you learn just how good they sounded, how famous they were at their peak, and what prison officials let them do.

In 1971, Robert Johnson was appointed the first Black superintendent of Graterford Prison, north of Philadelphia. According to a 2018 thesis by incarcerated student Marco Maldonado, Johnson used funding from former president Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society initiative to boost educational programs, including one focused on music. A group of lifers organized a band called The Power of Attorney, which soon caught the attention of the music industry.

James Brown, their Polydor labelmate, helped shepherd the 1974 release of their album, “From The Inside…,” which may help explain the high-gloss, horn-heavy funk arrangements. It was also recorded at The Hit Factory, a major studio in Manhattan, and Alice Cooper donated instruments.

The Power of Attorney played concerts across the northeast — escorted to and from venues by armed guard — and once opened for Stevie Wonder.

This story might have faded into history. But a few years ago an elderly, unhoused man named Charles McDowell walked into the Philadelphia record store Brewerytown Beats, looking for a copy of the “From The Inside…” He revealed to the store’s owner, Max Ochester, that he had played bass in the band. McDowell later passed away, but Ochester tracked down the former lead singer, Ron Aikens, singing street karaoke for tips outside of Philadelphia City Hall.

Aikens told me in an interview that the band had been allowed to spend entire nights away from the prison attending industry parties, wearing free-world clothes. When they returned, he recalled, other prisoners called them “idiots” for not using the opportunity to escape.

At least one member took the bait. At the Stevie Wonder gig, Aikens recalls McDowell, the bass player, fled the venue and remained on the lam for a few months until he was caught. But even with the occasional scandal, the band was good PR for the state: “We were ambassadors for the prison system,” Aikens said. “If something was going wrong, they’d roll us out to show what wonderful things they were doing.”

Aikens was released in 1976, and struggled to build a music career. He ended up working as a janitor. The band continued into the 1980s, but as prison populations exploded and rehabilitative programs dwindled — the phrase “nothing works” came into vogue among prison officials — Pennsylvania stopped letting them out to perform.

Ochester, the record store owner, re-released some of The Power of Attorney’s early material, including the song we’re featuring, “Changing Man.” It sounds less polished than the full album, but I like hearing these men in the midst of developing their sound. Aikens looks back on the band’s brief star turn as evidence of how prisons used to be more focused on helping people improve themselves. “When guys come out these days, they have nothing to feel good about,” he told me. But in the 1970s, “there were opportunities to show people that even though we were in prison, we had some worth, and somebody believed in us.”

LINER NOTES

Band: The Power of Attorney | Song: “Changing Man” | Year: 1973 | Location: Graterford Prison, Pennsylvania | Guitar: Brother J.X. Smith Bass and Vocals: Charles McDowell | Percussion: Gilberto Albizu | Saxophone: Marion Wilson | Drums: Otis J. Graham | Keyboards: William Smith | Flute: Dwight Williams