Iron chain song turns to platinum

Sometimes it takes a long time for a story to develop and what looks bleak at the time can turn out very differently. Take James Carter, for instance, who spent four different stints on the chain gang at Parchman Farm, the notorious Mississippi prison.

During his 1959 Parchman incarceration, Carter and his fellow chain-gang members were recorded by the legendary Alan Lomax from the Smithsonian Museum while they sang a chain-gang song, a recording that ended up gathering dust in the Smithsonian archives, where it remained for over 40 years.

Then famous directors and producers Joel and Ethan Coen began searching for roots and folk music for their 2000 movie