Soul Incarcerated
Soul Incarcerated
A+E's Soul Incarcerated podcast is the story of Edge of Daybreak, the best ‘70s soul band you’ve probably never heard about. They recorded their lone masterpiece, Eyes of Love, when they were locked up at a rural Virginia penitentiary at the height of America’s prison boom. Journalist Jamie Pietras traces the story of young musicians who grow up under segregation, face convictions for armed robber…Social links:
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Reaching Your Apex
The band members get settled back in Virginia and eagerly await the finished new album. Cupcake, however, isn’t feeling great about how things turned out and asks for another shot in the studio But a week before her scheduled recording, shesuffers another momentous loss. Can Cupcake push through mo…
30:55
Bad Old Los Angeles
Getting together after so many years isn’t without its bumps. After working through a few personality clashes, the band hits another obstacle–a big one. eeling from a recent breakup and a death in her family, Cupcake finds herself unable to sing lead vocals. The band manages to knock out their new …
27:57
I Wanna Be a Classic
A legendary LA music producer offers to help the band record their comeback album - but do they still have what it takes, now that they’re being given the chance? The band heads to LA and quickly learns that working with the biggest hit-makers of today feels a whole lot different than when they wer…
37:12
Second Lives, Second Chances
Life after prison was a mixed bag for the artists who each went their separate way, but Eyes of Love began taking on a life of its own, garnering a mythical status among collectors completely unbeknownst to the band. But that would change when, in 2015, a former bandmate cut a deal to re-release th…
30:35
Behind the Prison Music
Before they were wards of the state, Neal, Jamal, and Cupcake were twenty-somethings criss-crossing the south in traveling cover bands. That was before felony convictions for armed robbery landed them at Powhatan on extraordinarily long sentences. Having grown up under segregation, they now found t…
38:04
The Band of the State Correctional System
The Powhatan Correctional Center was a hellish place: overcrowded, underfunded, and known for its rampant violence. So how were Neal, Jamal, and Cupcake able to create and perform such soulful, life-affirming music? As America’s prison population began to skyrocket in the late 1970s, the musicians …
42:25
An Unusual Musical Happening
Harry “Cupcake” Coleman was 29 years old and staring down a 50-year sentence at the Powhatan Correctional Center, the Virginia penitentiary farm just 30 miles west of Richmond. Cupcake was a star vocalist in the prison’s soul ensemble, Edge of Daybreak. On Sept. 14, 1979, she and her bandmates rose…
38:09
Introducing: Soul Incarcerated
The Edge of Daybreak was a prison soul ensemble who recorded their first and only album in 1979 when they were incarcerated as young men. In this podcast series, the group’s surviving members try to mount their comeback. Soul Incarcerated tracks their struggles and triumphs along the way. It’s a It…
02:49