Colin Asher’s Book Notes music playlist for his book The Midnight Special

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others. Colin Asher’s The Midnight Special is a powerful book about art, rebellion, and humanity that thoughtfully examines the music created by five artists who were imprisoned (Johnny Cash, Tupac Shakur, Lead Belly, Elmo Hope, and Ike White). Booklist wrote of the book: “Asher creates rich, vivid portraits of all five of his subjects . . . He discusses at length these artists’ morally ambiguous songs about murderers and convicts, written with a touch of grace and a recognition of shared humanity. This chronicle is full of little epiphanies . . . A well-written and mesmerizing group portrait of five musical outlaws.” In his own words, here is Colin Asher’s Book Notes music playlist for his book The…