Courtney Plays Big House

It's not the legal battles she is currently fighting in New York City and Los Angeles that are sending her to the home of orange jumpsuits, but rather Love's desire to put on a Johnny Cash, Live at Folsom Prison-style performance. "I'm going to record in a prison," she tells Rolling Stone, as she readies to tape a show at a California women's correctional facility.

Love skipped out on a potential jail sentence in July when she pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of being under the influence of a controlled substance, stemming from a prior incident when police arrested her in Los Angeles. Inspired by this summer's narrow escape -- probation and rehab in lieu of incarceration -- the rocker has remained in touch with law enforcement officials about making a concert a reality.

"I dodged a bullet," says Love, "so I'm going to do the most I can do to make the ladies happy. I think [playing] a women's [prison] would be fun."

But first, Love and her band the Chelsea will do a series of dates for the general public, beginning October 24th in San Diego, California. The group is currently in rehearsals, where Love says they've been rediscovering cuts off her recent effort, America's Sweetheart.

"There's a song on my album, 'I'll Do Anything' -- I didn't know it sounded so much like Nirvana when I wrote it," she says. "It's fucking 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' It also sounds just like that Blur song, 'Song 2' -- the woo hoo song."

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

More Song Stories entries »

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