Instrumental pieces, sacred material, work songs, and blues performed by Black incarcerated men at the Clemens State Prison Farm (now Clemens Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justie). The session was a diversion for the men and treated as a show, with participants volunteering to perform. Some, such as Ace Johnson and Smith Casey (whom Ruby T. and John A. Lomax refer to in their notes as "Smith Cason," already had experience in front of a microphone from their participation in a radio broadcast from the prison called "Behind the Walls." Ruby noted that the session lasted about three hours with a break for lunch.