WEST Devon-based folk-rock musician Seth Lakeman will be launching his solo album behind bars.

The Yelverton singer-songwriter has been given permission to give a special concert ? Johnny Cash-style ? inside Dartmoor Prison on Wednesday, May 5. With the legends and stories surrounding Dartmoor and its inhabitants being the inspiration for the CD ?Kitty Jay?, Princetown prison seemed a fitting venue.

?I sent off a letter, not thinking for one moment that the governor would agree, because of security issues, but she and the staff could not be more helpful,? said Seth.

The songs were inspired by the mysterious and haunting background of Dartmoor and deal with all kinds of extremes of human behaviour.

?I am sure these are things that the prisoners inside Dartmoor can identify with. I have often passed the walls when I have travelled over the moor and wondered what it was like inside,? said Seth.

The title track, ?Kitty Jay?, tells the famous 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 crossroad near Hound?s Tor ? where to this day fresh flowers are mysteriously ever-present on the grave.

Other songs on the CD ? on IScream Records and which will be in the shops from May 10 ? deal with murder and tragedy.

?The album is all about what drives people to do extreme and desperate things,? said Seth, 26, who has travelled the world with folk-rock group Equation and Irish singer Cara Dillon.

The CD allows Seth to demonstrate his singing and songwriting in a way that has not been spotlighted before.

He says it is the result of wanting to produce an album ?coming from folk but saying something new.?

Because the Dartmoor Prison concert is not open to the public, Seth is giving a concert at the Cooperage, Vauxhall Street, Plymouth the day before on Tuesday, May 4 at 8pm. He will be joined at this gig by Show of Hands.