I've played quite a few different benefits over the last few years for an organization called

jail guitar doors and the idea is you bring musical instruments into prisons so that the best

behaved inmates might have the opportunity to learn how to play them and the wardens love it

they believe it's been a useful tool towards rehabilitating these prisoners and you might ask

you know Otis why do I care what happens inside of a prison? And I think that's a fair question.

The way I look at it is the vast majority of the people in prisons today will be released.

And they're going to move in next door to you and I, and they're going to become our neighbors.

And I think it's in our own best interest to make sure that when they come out of the prison,

they're in a much better mental state than they were when they went in.

If this sounds like something you'd like to look into, just go to jailgatardoors.org.

Music Hi, friends, this is Otis Gibbs, and you're listening to Thanks for Giving a Dam.

I'm sitting here in my living room in East Nashville, Tennessee, and it is a beautiful day out.

I can hear the birds singing through the window and you might be able to hear them in the background.

This is a personal journal.

This is a bit of an experiment.

I like to say right up front that I haven't the slightest idea what I'm doing, but I decided to do it anyway.

This show was founded with the idea that there are only two people in art that matter.

There's the creative individual and the person experiencing it, and everything else is

an artificial filter.

And this is a way for me to share things with you guys without any filters whatsoever.

My guess this week is Gurf Morlicks.

Gurf is a singer-songwriter, guitar player, he's a record producer,

...