The Blind Boys of Alabama
The Blind Boys of Alabama have spread the spirit and energy of pure soul gospel music for over 60 years, ever since the first version of the group formed at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind in 1939. Today, founding members Clarence Fountain, Jimmy Carter and George Scott are joined by more recent arrivals Joey Williams, Ricky McKinnie, Bobby Butler, and Tracy Pierce on a mission to expand the audience for traditional soul-gospel singing while incorporating contemporary songs and innovative arrangements into their hallowed style.
The group toiled for more than 40 years on the traditional gospel circuit. But in 1983, their career reached a turning point with their crucial role in The Gospel at Colonus, the smash hit musical drama created by Bob Telson and Lee Breuer. This Obie Award-winning Off-Broadway and Broadway success, coupled with their appearance on two original soundtrack albums (in 1984 and 1988), brought the Blind Boys' timeless sound to an enthusiastic new audience.
The 1992 album Deep River - produced by Booker T. Jones and featuring a transcendent version of Bob Dylan's I Believe In You - earned the Blind Boys their first Grammy Award nomination. It was, as their executive producer and long-time booking agent Chris Goldsmith notes, "the first time the Blind Boys ventured into 'gospelizing' relevant contemporary songs that weren't traditional soul-gospel songs." In 1995, the Blind Boys released the roof-raising live album I Brought Him With Me; it was followed (in 1997) by Holding On, an experiment in funked-up contemporary gospel.
The Blind Boys' Real World label debut, Spirit Of The Century - a set of hot-wired traditional gospel and carefully chosen contemporary songs that became the group's best-selling album to date and won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album. One track, a version of Tom Waits' Way Down in the Hole, became the theme song for the acclaimed HBO dramatic series The Wire. Higher Ground - a spiritual excavation into the soul music tradition - earned the group its second consecutive Grammy for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album.
While the sound of traditional soul gospel is still unmistakably at its core, Atom Bomb, the group's latest album, includes The Blind Boys' most adventurous forays into pop music yet, featuring loops, raps and roaring blues riffs. The disc includes an exuberant version of the Fatboy Slim/Macy Gray tune "Demons," featuring rapper Gift of Gab from Blackalicious, while Los Lobos guitarist David Hidalgo and blues harp icon Charlie Musselwhite help recast Norman Greenbaum's gospel-rock classic "Spirit in the Sky" as a raw, Detroit-style boogie.
