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The Blind Boys of Alabama
The Blind Boys of Alabama, also billed as The Five Blind Boys of Alabama, and Clarence Fountain and the Blind Boys of Alabama, is an American gospel group. The group was founded in 1939 in Talladega, Alabama, and has featured a changing roster of musicians over its history, the majority of whom are or were vision impaired.
The Blind Boys found mainstream success following their appearance in the 1983 Obie Award-winning musical The Gospel at Colonus. Since then, the group has toured internationally and has performed and recorded with such artists as Prince, Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, Bonnie Raitt, Ben Harper, Bon Iver, and Amadou & Mariam. The group's cover of the Tom Waits song "Way Down in the Hole" was used as the theme song for the first season of the HBO series The Wire.
The Blind Boys have won five Grammy Awards in addition to being presented with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009. They were endowed with a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1994, they were inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2003, and they were inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 2010. The group was also invited to the White House during the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama administrations.
Group member Ricky McKinnie said in a 2011 interview with the magazine Mother Jones: "Our disability doesn't have to be a handicap. It's not about what you can't do. It's about what you do. And what we do is sing good gospel music."
The Blind Boys of Alabama first sang together in 1939 as part of the school chorus at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind in Talladega, Alabama. The founding members were Clarence Fountain (1929–2018), George Scott (1929–2005), Velma Bozman Traylor (1923–1947), Johnny Fields (1927–2009), Olice Thomas (b. 1926, d. unknown), and the only sighted member, J. T. Hutton (c. 1924–2012.)
Early influences of the Blind Boys include the Golden Gate Quartet, The Soul Stirrers and The Heavenly Gospel Singers. While the boys were not allowed to sing black gospel music at their school (which was run by an all-white faculty), they were able to hear it on the radio.
The earliest version of the group was known as The Happy Land Jubilee Singers and their first performances were for World War II soldiers at nearby encampments, where the boys sang for pocket change. The group's first professional performance was on June 10, 1944, during a broadcast from radio station WSGN (currently WAGG) in Birmingham, Alabama. The following year, the members dropped out of school and began touring the gospel circuit. In 1947, lead vocalist Traylor died in a gun accident.
In 1948, a Newark, New Jersey, promoter booked the Happy Land Jubilee Singers along with a gospel act from Mississippi known as the Jackson Harmoneers, whose members were also visually impaired, and advertised the program as the "Battle of the Blind Boys." The two acts soon changed their names to the Five Blind Boys of Alabama and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi and often toured together. The Blind Boys' early sound was also influenced by the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi who were singing in the "hard gospel" style that was becoming popular at the time. Hard gospel often involved a shrieking and screaming style of singing and during performances some audience members reportedly would get so excited that some would have to be sent to the hospital.
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The Blind Boys of Alabama
The Blind Boys of Alabama, also billed as The Five Blind Boys of Alabama, and Clarence Fountain and the Blind Boys of Alabama, is an American gospel group. The group was founded in 1939 in Talladega, Alabama, and has featured a changing roster of musicians over its history, the majority of whom are or were vision impaired.
The Blind Boys found mainstream success following their appearance in the 1983 Obie Award-winning musical The Gospel at Colonus. Since then, the group has toured internationally and has performed and recorded with such artists as Prince, Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, Bonnie Raitt, Ben Harper, Bon Iver, and Amadou & Mariam. The group's cover of the Tom Waits song "Way Down in the Hole" was used as the theme song for the first season of the HBO series The Wire.
The Blind Boys have won five Grammy Awards in addition to being presented with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009. They were endowed with a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1994, they were inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2003, and they were inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 2010. The group was also invited to the White House during the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama administrations.
Group member Ricky McKinnie said in a 2011 interview with the magazine Mother Jones: "Our disability doesn't have to be a handicap. It's not about what you can't do. It's about what you do. And what we do is sing good gospel music."
The Blind Boys of Alabama first sang together in 1939 as part of the school chorus at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind in Talladega, Alabama. The founding members were Clarence Fountain (1929–2018), George Scott (1929–2005), Velma Bozman Traylor (1923–1947), Johnny Fields (1927–2009), Olice Thomas (b. 1926, d. unknown), and the only sighted member, J. T. Hutton (c. 1924–2012.)
Early influences of the Blind Boys include the Golden Gate Quartet, The Soul Stirrers and The Heavenly Gospel Singers. While the boys were not allowed to sing black gospel music at their school (which was run by an all-white faculty), they were able to hear it on the radio.
The earliest version of the group was known as The Happy Land Jubilee Singers and their first performances were for World War II soldiers at nearby encampments, where the boys sang for pocket change. The group's first professional performance was on June 10, 1944, during a broadcast from radio station WSGN (currently WAGG) in Birmingham, Alabama. The following year, the members dropped out of school and began touring the gospel circuit. In 1947, lead vocalist Traylor died in a gun accident.
In 1948, a Newark, New Jersey, promoter booked the Happy Land Jubilee Singers along with a gospel act from Mississippi known as the Jackson Harmoneers, whose members were also visually impaired, and advertised the program as the "Battle of the Blind Boys." The two acts soon changed their names to the Five Blind Boys of Alabama and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi and often toured together. The Blind Boys' early sound was also influenced by the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi who were singing in the "hard gospel" style that was becoming popular at the time. Hard gospel often involved a shrieking and screaming style of singing and during performances some audience members reportedly would get so excited that some would have to be sent to the hospital.