The Blind Boys of Alabama

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The Blind Boys of Alabama, 2008

The Blind Boys of Alabama is a gospel group from Alabama that was founded by five blind boys in 1939 at the Talladega Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind in Talladega under the name The Happyland Singers ; they were nine years old then.

Career

When they were supposed to perform with the Jackson Harmonies, another group of blind singers, in 1948, the promoter had the concert advertised as a competition between the Five Blind Boys of Alabama and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi . Both ensembles then kept these names.

The Blind Boys of Alabama stand in the tradition of four-part gospel chanting , which allows vocal melodies to contrast dramatically. This style was first widespread in religious circles, was then secularized by groups such as the Golden Gate Quartet and had a center in Birmingham, Alabama at the time .

The group performed at African-American gospel concerts for several decades, including major events in the 1950s with the Soul Stirrers , the Pilgrim Travelers, and the Blind Boys of Mississippi.

In the early 1980s they participated in the musical The Gospel at Colonus , which tells the classic Greek tragedy Oedipus auf Kolonos by Sophocles about the preacher of a contemporary Pentecostal church . This production won an Obie Award and gave the Blind Boys of Alabama a surge in popularity.

Of the founding members, the long-standing lead singer Clarence Fountain, who died on June 3, 2018 at the age of 88, was there, but he had to limit his concert tours in the last years of his life for health reasons. George Scott, the last original member next to Fountain, died on March 9, 2005 at the age of 75. Jimmy Carter, another gospel veteran, is - contrary to what is sometimes claimed - not a founding member. He has sung with the Blind Boys of Mississippi - albeit only since the early 1970s - and only joined the Blind Boys of Alabama in the 1990s . Paul Beasley has been with us since 2013, with his distinctive falsetto singing in the 1960s and 1970s at the gospel keynotes and since the late 1970s he sang with the Mighty Clouds of Joy for a few years .

From 2002 to 2005 they won the Grammy four times in a row for the best traditional gospel album (2005 together with Ben Harper ), they won this award again in 2009 , along with a Grammy for their life's work .

The group has worked with numerous artists including Aaron Neville , Tom Waits , Anthony Hamilton , Mavis Staples , Bonnie Raitt , Randy Travis , Solomon Burke , Lou Reed and Mahalia Jackson . The Blind Boys of Alabama have toured with Tom Petty and Peter Gabriel . In 2002 the group also released a cover version of the Prince song The Cross .

Discography (selection)

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Go Tell It on the Mountain
  US 164 03/01/2004 (3 weeks)
There Will Be a Light (with Ben Harper )
  DE 73 04/10/2004 (1 week)
  AT 37 10/03/2004 (5 weeks)
  CH 3 10/03/2004 (9 weeks)
  US 81 10/09/2004 (6 weeks)
Live at the Apollo (with Ben Harper)
  CH 96 03/27/2005 (1 week)

Individual proof

  1. ↑ The Blind Boys Of Alabama , CBS , December 24, 2003
  2. ↑ Chart sources: DE AT CH US

Web links

Commons : The Blind Boys of Alabama  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files