South African singer-songwriter’s melody unchained in prison

Larry Joe finds in solitary confinement the peace of mind he needed to develop his talent. A producer helps him make a CD in a cell-turned-studio.

Larry Joe can see only seven stars in his small slice of sky. He has spent nearly three years with those stars outside his slatted window, counting the days of his sentence for housebreaking in Douglas Correctional Center in South Africa’s Northern Cape province.

But he has a guitar, his songs and a wild, untamable hope. “I want to be a bright, bright star.” His voice is wistful, as soft as velvet. “I want people, when they hear me, to see the darkness a little less.”

The first seven months in prison he thought about “everything”: what he’d done, how things had gone so wrong. “I was thinking, ‘Why did that happen?’ and ‘Why did that happen?’ After eight months, I was thinked up. Then the guy next to me would say, ‘What are you thinking about?’ I’d say, ‘Nothing. Nothing.’” He asked to be put into solitary confinement, where he spent many months, and he started to write songs.

“I started to put my feelings in words,” said Larry Joe, 31, who asked that only his stage name be used. “I wanted my guitar to sound exactly the way I felt.” He strums his guitar and sings, his voice so sweet that it’s heartbreaking. But prison didn’t break the balladeer. Instead, it made him, as an artist and as a man. He decided he was not such a bad man that he couldn’t be a good one.

More about Larry Joe http://www.larryjoelive.com