Paying his dues and finding success

Mark “Muleman” Massey is being lauded by those in the music industry — including Shoals musician and producer Billy Lawson — as a standout in today’s R&B scene, but it wasn’t always his plan to become a blues singer.

To hear Massey tell it, he got his start by “crossing the law.”

“I come from a small town in Mississippi,” the Clarksdale native begins retelling his story. “I was a football player, and you know, a hardworking ol’ boy that come from a good family, but I made some mistakes and wound up in the notorious Parchman Farm.”

Located in the Mississippi River Delta and surrounded by swampland, the maximum- security prison farm inspired films like “O Brother Where Art Thou?” and the William Faulkner novel “The Mansion,” which highlight Parchman Farm’s claim to fame — a rich musical history intertwined with systemic and racial injustice.

“A lot of blues legends did time there. Even Elvis’ dad, Vernon Presley, served time there. I think it was for swapping a $4 check to $40 or something like that,” Massey said, going on to compare conditions at the prison to modernday slavery.

“You know, slavery was supposedly abolished, but even when I did time there, Parchman was a forced labor farm. If you didn’t go out in the field, they could whip you. There was a gun line, and if you crossed it, they’d shoot you. Of course, all that’s changed now,” he said. “While I was there, there were a lot of young Black men — whites too, but most Black — who had these small misdemeanor crimes they couldn’t pay. That was a way to work them. Take them to Parchman and make them work off their fines. It was lengthy stays for small amounts.”

Masey still has his inmate number, 92597, memorized. He was incarcerated in 1991 for a six-year sentence for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana.

“Now we have a cannabis store in the same hometown that sent me away and has prosecuted me,” he said. “But that was the beginning of it all. There’s been a big transformation. I went back 18 months ago and was asked to play some shows. The first one the new superintendent, Marc McClure, wanted me to play for death row. Some of those guys — if you can believe it—knew me from almost 40 years ago.”

Massey had no musical background before his time at Parchman.

He’d paid some of his dues, literally, working in cotton fields at one of the labor camps in the prison. He had been moved up as a trustee where he was placed in another labor camp with longtime inmates who had earned similar status.

Mark “Muleman” Massey now sings on stages around the world.

Walking the fence one day, singing a tune to help pass the time, Massey said a fellow prisoner, Ronnie Gregg, was impressed enough to encourage him to audition for the Parchman Band.

“Ronnie had been there for seven years and was the lead guitar player. He looked just like a young Merle Haggard, and he could play like James Burton,” Massey said. “I have not caught up to him as a guitar player. He was that good. I was so blessed to have that man in my life.”

Massey earned a position with the band, whose shackled players got to leave the prison about once a month to play shows for state legislators and grace stages at festivals and events around Mississippi.

After serving a lesser sentence and being released in 1993, Massey continued crafting his sound and talent. He even earned his nickname “Muleman” from another Mississippi blues legend, the late Big Jack Johnson.

“He was ‘The Oilman,’ because he took oil all around town in Clarksdale, and that’s where he got his name. Well, he came to my house to look at some hogs, and I told him, ‘I ain’t got no nickname.’ My friends on Beale Street said I ought to be called the ‘Duke of Clarksdale,’ but I don’t even know what a duke is,” Massey said, laughing. “About that time, a mule walked up, and I’m petting him. I told Big Jack, ‘I’ve been raising and selling mules since I was 10.’ He said, ‘That’s going to be your name! I ain’t going to call you nothing else.’ And that was it.”

Massey recorded some of his own music in Memphis, Tennessee. He eventually found his way to the Shoals after being introduced to Lawson through a shared friend in the industry, Billy Earheart, who was a founding member of the 1970s rock group the Amazing Rhythm Aces.

“When I finally made it to (Lawson’s) studio, we started talking and he said, ‘I’m a fan of yours.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m a fan of yours! I’m really excited to work with you.’ And that was the truth. He’s an incredible songwriter,” Massey said.

Working at Wishbone Studio, Massey and Lawson co-wrote his album “Been a Long, Long Time.”

“I’m probably the only blues artist from Mississippi with this kind of story — one who left and went to the Shoals instead of Malaco in Jackson or Ardent in Memphis,” Massey said. “Billy and I clicked, and I’m so proud of that record. We’d write songs together in a day. I’d drive two hours, work all day, record at night and head home at midnight, pinching my ears and slapping my face to stay awake. But I’d be playing that ‘Long Time’ track the whole way home. That’s how excited I was.”

Thirty-three years after serving time at Parchman Farm, Massey is taking his hit-making experience back on the road with the band he’s decided to help revive. Since he believes the Parchman Band saved him — forever changing the trajectory of his life — he hopes to do the same for current inmates at the prison.

“I’ve got fans that know I’m from there, and even for the inmates, I hope my story can help them somehow,” he said. “I hope the music can bring happiness to them, and for the 11 guys we’ve got playing with us in the Parchman Band now, I hope it can bring them a little rehabilitation. I just want to give them something and show them that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Somebody loves you. Even if it ain’t your Mama, I love you.”