FIVE THINGS You SHould KNOW ABOUT
The Blind Boys of Alabama

December 14, 2020 | by Rusty Aceves

The Blind Boys of Alabama

This week’s Fridays at Five streaming concert focuses on a holiday favorite at SFJAZZ, namely the amazing gospel legends The Blind Boys of Alabama and their Christmas-themed show, filmed in December 2018. For a little history on the group and this program, here are five things you should know.

1. The group is among the longest-lived musical groups performing today. First singing together in 1939 as members of the school chorus at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind in Talladega, Alabama and originally performing under the name The Happy Land Jubilee Singers, The Blind Boys of Alabama have been recording and performing continuously for eight decades. First singing publically for pocket change for soldiers at military installations, the group’s professional debut was a live broadcast on Birmingham’s WSGN in 1945. The next year, the group dropped out of school and began touring the gospel circuit in the segregated South. Founding member and leader Clarence Fountain passed in June 2018, just six months before the concert streamed on Fridays at Five was filmed.
2. They pioneered an innovative approach to gospel music. Forming during a pivotal period of development in spiritual music, The Blind Boys were originally inspired by the close harmonies, formalized arrangements and emphasis on ensemble vocals of early “jubilee” gospel popularized by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Golden Gate Quartet, the and the Dixie Hummingbirds. As they developed their style into the 1950s, the group combined the sharply defined harmonies of their jubilee training with the rousing arrangements and fervent improvisations of the emerging “hard gospel” sound.
   As the 1950s went on, gospel artists like Ray Charles and Sam Cooke crossed over into secular pop music, and The Blind Boys felt increasing pressure to do the same, but they stayed true to their roots, remaining faithful (no pun intended) to gospel to the present day.
3. Their list of albums, performances, soundtrack appearances, and collaborators is long and distinguished. The group was a highly visible part of the burgeoning of civil rights movement in the early 1960s, performing at benefits for Martin Luther King Jr., among others, but by the 70s their visibility diminished.
   After performing within the gospel music community for four decades and making over two-dozen recordings, The Blind Boys broke through to a wider audience in the late 1980s with their performances in the Obie-winning Broadway musical The Gospel at Colonus alongside Morgan Freeman. Since then, their profile expanded considerably, including global tours, much more prolific recording, and collaboration with artists including Stevie Wonder, Prince, Mavis Staples, Ben Harper, Allen Toussaint, Willie Nelson, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed, Hank Williams Jr., Bon Iver, Tom Waits, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Patty Griffin, Taj Mahal, Marc Cohn, and Amadou & Miriam, among others. They’ve performed at the White House on three occasions for three different presidents, and in 2003, television producer David Simon chose The Blind Boys’ version of Tom Waits’ “Way Down in the Hole” as the theme song for the first season of his now-iconic HBO series The Wire.
4. They have received numerous awards and accolades. The group is easily among the most lauded in gospel music, with ten GRAMMY nominations and five wins along with a 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award. They’ve received four of the Gospel Music Association’s Dove Awards — three for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album and one for Song of the Year for their 2008 recording of the traditional “Free at Last” from their late career masterpiece Down in New Orleans. The group was awarded at National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1994, were inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2003, and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 2010.
5. Their performances of Christmas music have become an SFJAZZ tradition. Since their SFJAZZ debut in 1992, The Blind Boys have performed on our stages seven times, the last five have been focused on seasonal songs as they first recorded them on their star-studded 2003 Real World release Go Tell It on the Mountain. Their combination of Christmas favorites and beloved gospel classics have been a perfect combination for the season, making their concerts some of the most eagerly anticipated of the annual seasons. In 2014, The Blind Boys teamed up with blues legend Taj Mahal for a new holiday music collection, Talking Christmas, bringing yet another dimension to the Blind Boys approach to seasonal music.

           The Blind Boys of Alabama on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert