Jailhouse Rock

Gary singing Friends in Low Places

“Yeah, and I’ve been in the music game before,” the other one added. “I should be getting released soon. I’ll take you nationwide. We’re talking Letterman, you know, Kimmel and shit. Whatever.” Corey got similar offers from would-be hangers-on for his jail-yard entourage. After the semifinals, he was approached by a couple of managers, bodyguards, a few financial advisers. Oh sure, he thought, I’d like to meet my financial adviser in jail. One day, Christopher was surprised to discover he even had fans. Calvin, a quiet, diabetic man whom Christopher sometimes talked to, found an extra pink ballot and pencil and brought it to Christopher for an autograph. “What the hell?” Christopher said, laughing it off. “I feel kinda stupid doing this,” Calvin said. “But I’m serious.” TO CAL, Christopher wrote. KEEP THE BLOOD SUGAR LOW, BUDDY. No sooner had Christopher signed it than he had a flash of second thoughts. “Oh shit,” he wondered. “What if Calvin is in here for forgery?” Round 3: The Finals Hello, K-JOE listeners! Thanks to your votes, Inmate Idle is moving along. For those of you out at Tent City, you’re going to get a real treat when we stage the final concert live. Weatherman says rain, but let’s hope he’s wrong, because your contestants are ready to sing their hearts out Everyone knew it was showtime when the Rocky theme began echoing across Tent City. From the stage, the view was 270 degrees of black and white and pink — a thousand prisoners cheering wildly through the chainlink fences, women on the left, men on the right. A few portable towers lifted men with shotguns against the blue desert mantle, but aside from a few stone-faced guards and muzzled German shepherds, everyone was gearing up for a good time. One at a time, Bob introduced the finalists to increasing applause. All wore brand-new stripes, which another inmate had volunteered to clean and press that morning. Gary and Christopher had combed their long hair and Katrina had gotten a special makeover from Thelda’s staff because early-morning rain turned her hair into a frizz. Bret had given them one last pep talk, with final pointers on holding the notes, emphasizing the chorus and playing to the audience. For a true performer, he told them, a charity event is the same as a stadium full of fans with lighters in the air — and, presumably, a captive audience for whom lighters are contraband. “Entertain like you’re entertaining a million people,” he’d said. Then he’d joined hands with all six for a prayer circle led by John before going off to suit up as Elvis. “All right, now let’s meet the judges,” Bob roared. Reminding everyone they were in jail, the finals of Inmate Idle would not be decided by popular vote. Out came Sheriff Joe (to boos from the inmates) and an Elvis-clad Bret (to the overture from Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra). “You just haven’t lived,” someone said, “until you’ve seen an Elvis impersonator opening a jail-yard set with Richard Wagner.” “And now,” Bob continued, “let’s hear it for one of the biggest superstars in the history of rock & roll, Alice Cooper!” Yes: Alice Cooper. Music legend. Avid golfer. Seasonal Phoenix resident. And now Inmate Idle celebrity panelist. Although his was the biggest ruckus kicked up by the inmates, Cooper is probably the nicest guy in devil makeup you’ll ever meet; known for his lack of ego and his philanthropic bent, he was gracious as he thanked the crowd and sat down to watch Bret kick the program off as “The King.” Bret sauntered up in whiter-than-white spats and more tassels than Elvis would ever have dared to wear, and jumped right into “Jailhouse Rock,” throwing kicks and foot changes, journeying into the crowd and mugging for the women in stripes on the other side of the fence. Play like it’s always packed, Bret says, and now it was: With all those inmates, and one of his rock & roll heroes just a few feet away, Bret realized while basking in the applause, Inmate Idle was the biggest concert he’d done in years. It was up to Katrina, the first contestant, to keep up the momentum. Shortly before the finals, Bret had converted the women’s day room at Tent City into an impromptu concert hall just for Katrina so she could give a command performance for a familiar audience and build up her confidence. Taking the stage, Katrina could see the women holding up handmade signs rooting for her. A few days earlier, the women inmates had shocked their D.O.s by surreptitiously putting in a tank order for glitter and glue and poster board to surprise Katrina. Never in 12 years had anyone seen the women in Tent City jointly volunteer to do a project, especially one in support of another inmate. Katrina’s vocal cords were scratched from too much practice, so she’d switched to “One, Two Step” by Ciara to take advantage of her remarkable body control and focus on dancing. Katrina’s stripes sagged appropriately low all through “One, Two Step,” and hung on during her finale, which included some incredibly precise jumping booty aimed directly at Sheriff Joe. “What’s up, Estrella!” was John’s opening shout-out. In rehearsal, John had wanted to switch his song to “My Way,” which confused Bret, since John’s Otis Redding was full of soul — not exactly the prime ingredient in Sinatra. When Bret said John’s “My Way” wasn’t making use of his R&B chops, John said, “Got it. How about ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’? Or I know: ‘Garden Party’ by Ricky Nelson?” Finally, Bret persuaded him to stick with Otis Redding, which was right on target for the judges and the audience. John had spent the previous night improvising the song to fit his circumstances: “I left my home on the south side. And the sheriff gave me somewhere to stay. I had no one on my side, to post the bail I needed to pay. So I’m just gonna sit on the dock of the bay, wasting time.” Gary’s “I Got Friends in Low Places” went over just as Bret had hoped. Gary leaned into each chorus, with its appropriately boozy regret (“where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases”), and got everyone singing along. As a former rocker, Bret had advised Gary on how to use his long hair as an additional instrument, as versatile as the voice or guitar. Gary started with a ponytail, then shook it down and was swinging it in circles by the time he unveiled his own lyrical adaptation: “I Got Friends in Joe’s Places.” When Corey was introduced, he was reserved, as usual. His deep, slow voice was tentative, but once the music started, Corey’s alto kicked in and did the trick. He’d come a long way since Bret found him in that holding tank, with 60 days and nothing to look forward to. Bret knew Corey would have a light stage presence, so he’d suggested doing footwork: “That’s what the Temptations are known for.” Corey used the bridge for some modest choreography, a nice touch during which Cooper and Bret followed along in their chairs, snapping their fingers, swinging their arms. Behind the fence, the women swayed en masse until Corey left the stage. Christopher had grossly miscalculated the security situation surrounding singing in jail and kept himself awake all night with wild visions of crowd-surfing the audience. When he realized most of the audience was behind a fence, Christopher decided he still needed to rock, so he jumped up onstage, waving his hair around, pulling back on the mike with eyes closed, and thanking “all you ladies.” Unfortunately, his own lady was not at the tents; Hope had been released from jail and Christopher never heard from her, so he assumed it was over. That’s why he ditched “With Arms Wide Open.” With his girl gone, he decided, why risk it all on a ballad? Creed’s “Higher” had the kick he needed. Bob invited all the finalists up for the moment of truth. The judges compared scorecards, where they’d recorded marks for voice, performance and personality. Cooper presented the official Inmate Idle certificate. “I tell you what, it came down to two,” he said. “Corey and Johnny here.” Fingers through the fence, the vast striped crowd died down in anticipation. The men in mirrored aviators eased up on their trigger fingers. Cooper looked at the tally, made an obligatory dramatic pause, and announced the winner: “Corey, you’re the man. Come on up here.” Cameras closed in as Sheriff Joe stepped in to explain the prize, which was already en route from a local McDonald’s and Pizza Hut. “At first, we thought this was a lark, a joke,” he said. “But as time went on, these guys really came together.” More than Sheriff Joe knew: As with any good reality show, the contestants had created an alliance — whoever won, they’d agreed to ask that the prize be extended to all the finalists. John spoke up, and with the news cameras rolling, the sheriff relented. “You’re right,” he said. “You should get the food too.” Corey rolled his eyes at the sheriff’s magnanimity, and added, “We really did this for the music.” Alice Cooper stuck around for the post-show publicity scrum, during which Sheriff Joe made endless jokes about his “con-test,” while all six contestants told reporters they were genuinely grateful for this strange opportunity. “Here I am in jail,” John mused, “singing for the people and talking to you all about music. I mean, how bad can things be?” Bret proudly posed for photographers with the finalists. As he had told them, performance is about escape. You make people forget their problems for just a little while, and Inmate Idle brought some momentary escape to the otherwise gray world of jail inside Maricopa County. “For the time we were singing,” Corey told reporters, “we weren’t doing time. And neither were all those people singing along.”