The Blind Boys of Alabama: still thrilling audiences and winning awards after 66 years

Ebony, June, 2003 by Marsha Gilbert

SIX elderly Black men dressed in identical tan suits and silk shirts walk slowly in single file toward center stage. Each man has a hand placed on the shoulder of the man ahead of him, forming a human chain. At the sight of them, audience members stand up applauding and cheering with a frenzy usually showered on rock stars. But they aren't rap stars or rock idols. They are the legendary gospel group, the Blind Boys of Alabama, beginning a performance at the Symphony Center in Chicago that includes the foot-stomping classic "I'm a Soldier in the Army of the Lord" and the harmonic ballad "Motherless Child."

Although four members of the group are blind--singers Clarence Fountain, Jimmy Carter, George Scott and drummer Eric (Ricky) McKinnie--this has not hampered their harmony or their success. The only thing these sightless performers need is help getting in place, and that comes from sighted members Caleb Butler, who plays bass, and Joey Williams, the guitarist.

For 66 years the group has been thrilling audiences from coast to coast, and 2003 marked a new highlight in its legendary career. This spring, they were inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and their new CD Higher Ground received a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album. They will appear later in the movie The Fighting Temptations with Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beyonce Knowles, and their rendition of "Amazing Grace" can be heard in the movie The Guys starring Sigourney Weaver and Anthony LaPaglia. At the same time, they are touring the world, performing on stages from South Dakota to Switzerland, on an almost daily schedule that would exhaust singers a third of their 70-plus years.

It all started when the Blind Boys met back in 1937 at the Talladega Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind near Birmingham when they were all around 7 years old. They came to the school to learn to read braille and make chairs, shelves and brooms, says Fountain, who lost his sight as an infant, after a midwife treated him for pinkeye. Some of the other members were born blind.

While at the school, the boys learned to sing jubilee-style gospel in the school choir. When they finished their studies around age 14, they decided they would earn their living by singing, not making brooms or furniture.

So, in 1944, they packed into a 1939 Buick driven by two deaf former classmates and began their first tour, calling themselves the Happy Land Jubilee Singers. "Then, gospel was the most popular music to sing," says Fountain, the group's leader. "R&B and rock n' roll hadn't started, and the blues didn't become popular until the '60s."

In the '40s, the group played in churches, throughout the South. Parishioners passed collection plates to pay them and let the young men stay in their homes because the group couldn't afford to stay in the few hotels that admitted Blacks in the segregated South.

At one concert, a promoter advertised the show they were in with another group of blind singers as "the Blind Boys of Mississippi versus the Blind Boys of Alabama"--and the name stuck.

By 1950, they were selling records, but making almost no money from them. Each record company they signed contracts with took advantage of them, Fountain says. When they first started recording, they were each paid $50 per album side and the record company kept the rest. By 1953, each member made $100 a side. They also got enough cash to make down payments on cars. "That was good money in that day," Fountain says. "We didn't know what we were worth."

Perhaps they were taken advantage of because of racism, their youth or because they were blind, but the members, who have retained an attorney, say they were never paid royalties and still don't know how many of their 20-plus records were sold since the 1950s.

But for the Blind Boys, it's always been about singing gospel, whether they could make ends meet or not. They were offered opportunities to sing other types of music like their contemporaries, Sam Cooke and Ray Charles, who moved from gospel to secular music. But the Blind Boys refused to make that change. "We are looking for life eternal," Fountain says. "So we stuck to gospel."

That's not to say that they aren't keeping their music current. Since they started singing the upbeat, jubilee-style of gospel, they've developed a brand that is flavored with elements of rock, country, folk and R&B. Their current tour schedule includes 25 dates with rock-pop singer Peter Gabriel.

Their latest CD, Higher Ground, uses traditional gospel lyrics combined with the music of other artists. The title song borrows the lyrics and melody to Stevie Wonder's 1973 hit of the same title, but they changed some of the words to make it a gospel song. For example, "Lovers, keep on lovin'" became "Prayers, keep on prayin'." They also perform

covers of other songs, including "People Get Ready" by Curtis Mayfield, "Spirit in the Dark" by Aretha Franklin, "The Cross" by Prince and even "Me and My Folks" by Funkadelic. But they refuse to record songs that don't carry their gospel message. "If we don't like it, we won't sing it," Fountain says.