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Since 1939, the Blind Boys of Alabama have sung a fervent blend of traditional and contemporary gospel music. Much has changed during these seven prolific decades. Stylistic phases have waxed and waned; personnel has come and gone. Seventy-eight rpm records have given way to LPs, followed by eight-track tapes, cassettes and CDs. The Blind Boys’ audience—once rigidly segregated and confined to traditional gospel venues—now reflects the group’s eclectic, global following, while their repertoire has expanded to embrace secular songs with a strongly spiritual message. Such wide acceptance is also evidenced by four Grammy awards, an honor that didn’t exist when the Blind Boys started out, and a Lifetime Achievement award at the 2009 Grammy ceremonies. Singer Jimmy Carter, who was there when the group was first formed, leads the band today with the firm conviction, joyous commitment, and gravitas that befit an elder statesman.
But Carter's venerable stature does not preclude an adventurous openness to musical experimentation. Hence the Blind Boys' decision to record Live in New Orleans, a new concert DVD companion to their Grammy-nominated album Down in New Orleans. Due on February 24th, the DVD was filmed at the historic Crescent City club Tipitina's during the 2008 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Inspired by the critically acclaimed album (released on January 29th, 2008), the DVD continues the Blind Boys’ heartfelt tribute to the Crescent City and includes guest appearances by New Orleans acts Dr. John, Henry Butler, Marva Wright, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, as well as old friend Susan Tedeschi. The band was anchored for a set that night by the tight Crescent City threesome of pianist David Torkanowsky, bassist Peter Harris and drummer Shannon Powell. (The CD also featured Preservation Hall and two of the the aforementioned 'New Orleans trio,' along with a some of New Orleans' best R&B and jazz musicians: Allen Toussaint and the Hot 8 Brass Band.)
“This particular flavor is new for us,” Carter comments. “We’ve never recorded in New Orleans, never been backed up by any New Orleans bands. We’ve had it in our minds to work there for awhile, and we decided to do it now to support New Orleans while they rebuild after the hurricane. I can’t get up on a ladder and hammer nails, but me and the guys can sing inspirational songs that will help lift people’s hearts while they hammer nails.
“New Orleans musicians have a different feel to their rhythm,” Carter continues. “They play with what you call syncopation, a push and pull. I have heard jazz before, what people used to call Dixieland music, and I like it—but I never had to sing to it before. We had to make some adjustments to get used to that beat. But it wasn’t hard. First of all, those New Orleans guys were so nice—they’re good musicians, good people, clean people. We enjoyed working with them. And they didn’t just try to do it all, they listened to our ideas, too. We put our heads together with them, and with our producer Chris Goldsmith and our manager Charles Driebe. The communication was good. And we did alright with it.”
They did alright with it indeed. The result is a fusion of style and nuance that links many disparate aspects—both chronological and geographical—of American musical tradition.
“You see, some people think that gospel singers should only sing gospel songs. But we believe in songs with a positive message. Now, we will never cross over into pop music and start singing love songs; people have asked us to do that many a time and we have always turned them down. But, I am not one of those gospel singers who thinks blues and rhythm & blues is the Devil’s music. No, indeed! I love the blues. I am a big fan of Blind Boy Fuller, Sonny Boy Williamson, Lightnin’ Hopkins, B. B. King.
“From way back, we always knew who those blues and R&B artists were and we admired them all, including the ones from New Orleans like Fats Domino. We didn’t perform with them, way back in the day, because gospel was separate. But we perform with them today.” In recent years the Blind Boys have also performed and recorded with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Randy Travis, Peter Gabriel, Solomon Burke, Lou Reed and Ben Harper.
At the core of the Blind Boys’ sound is four-part harmony that makes dramatic use of contrasting vocal leads. Immensely popular in early gospel music circles, thanks to seminal groups such as the Golden Gate Quartet, this style was later adapted as a key component in secular rhythm & blues. Birmingham evolved as a center for this four-part gospel harmony sound, leading some experts to dub it “the Alabama style.” It was at Alabama’s Talladega Institute for the Blind that five blind youngsters first came together, initially calling their group the Happyland Singers. “The Happyland name lasted until 1948,” Carter explains. “Then a promoter in New Jersey booked the group on a show along with another blind group called the Jackson Harmonies. He decided to hype it up, and he billed it as a contest between ‘the Five Blind Boys of Alabama and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi.’ Both groups liked that idea and changed their names behind it.”
The rechristened Alabamians barnstormed the African-American gospel circuit for decades. “Of course,” Carter continues, “we have performed in New Orleans many, many times, going way back. In the ’50s there was a promoter named Reverend Herman Brown, he’d put big shows together with lots of groups and he would call it ‘an extravaganza’—there’d be us, the Soul Stirrers, the Pilgrim Travelers, and the Blind Boys of Mississippi.” Then, in the early ’80s, the Blind Boys of Alabama performed in the Obie Award–winning musical The Gospel at Colonus, in which a classic Greek tragedy by Sophocles was presented with a contemporary Pentecostal motif. “That play really took us to another level,” Carter says, “and ever since, we been playing all over the world. I never thought we’d still be doing it, all these years later. Yes, we thought we’d do good, but we never had the notion that it would be this good for so long—and thank God for that. I still love it, I haven’t got tired of singing yet.”