Lakeman's music is inspired by Dartmoor and its legends

Seth Lakeman will play music from his debut album which is based on legends surrounding the Devon moor.

Prison governor Claudia Sturt gave Lakeman, 26, the go-ahead to play a gig in the prison's chapel on Wednesday.

Cash, who died last September aged 71, recorded albums at San Quentin Prison and Folsom Prison during his career.

One of the prisoners, a musician himself, will join Lakeman on stage.

We did play one in the US where the cowboys got their guns out but this has got to be stranger Seth Lakeman

The jail, built by prisoners of the Napoleonic Wars in the middle of the 365-square mile wilderness, has around 600 inmates.

Lakeman lives at Yelverton, five minutes from the granite prison walls.

He said ahead of the concert that one of the inmates would be joining the band on stage for a couple of songs.

He said: "I asked the prison authorities if there was anyone who was a good musician.

"I thought it would be a way of involving the inmates more."

He said he and the inmate spent an hour together rehearsing, adding: "He is a great singer and plays rhythm guitar."

Lakeman said the Dartmoor concert would be his "strangest gig yet".

He said: "We did play one in the United States where the cowboys got their guns out but this has got to be stranger."

Mysterious flowers

Seth, one of three professional musician sons of a musical family, has travelled the world with folk-rock group Equation and Irish singer Cara Dillon.

His album of songs is based on the legends and landscape of Dartmoor so he decided the jail was the place to launch the CD.

The album Kitty Jay, out on IScream Records, will be in the shops from 10 May.

The title track tells of the legend of a servant girl who got pregnant and hanged herself in a barn.

Because suicides were never buried in consecrated ground, she was laid to rest at a crossroads near Hound's Tor.

To this day, fresh flowers are mysteriously ever-present on the grave but no-one is ever seen putting them there.