What was the origin of prison albums and which is the best?

What was the origin of prison albums and which is the best?

In 1963, just a few months before Capitol Records signed The Beatles, the LA-based label thought they might have found an even more unlikely recording star in the form of a young man named Charles Lee Guy III, a 25-year-old prison inmate doing time at the Vacaville State Pen in California. As a teenager, back in 1957, Guy had been convicted of involuntary manslaughter for shooting his mother’s fiancé dead [some evidence suggests he might have be…