The Blind Boys of Alabama
The Blind Boys of Alabama is a gospel group from Alabama, which was founded by five blind boys in 1939 at the Talladega Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind in Talladega as The Happyland Singers, they were then just 9 years old.
As they should occur together with the Jackson Harmonies, another group of blind singer in 1948, the organizers left the concert as a competition between the Five Blind Boys of Alabama and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi advertise. Both ensembles kept that name when then.
The Blind Boys of Alabama are in the tradition of four-part gospel song set, which can dramatically contrasting vocal melodies. This style was first used in religious circles, it was then secularized by groups like the Golden Gate Quartet and had his time in Birmingham (Alabama ) a center.
The group met for several decades on at African- American gospel concerts, among others in the 1950s in major events, together with the Soul Stirrers, the Pilgrim Travelers, and the Blind Boys of Mississippi.
In the early 1980s she participated in the musical The Gospel at Colonus, which can be told by the preacher of a contemporary Pentecostal church classical Greek tragedy Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles. This production won an Obie Award and brought the Blind Boys of Alabama a popularity jump.
Today, by the founding members is only the longtime lead singer Clarence Fountain doing, but he has limited his concert tours for health reasons. George Scott, last original member besides Fountain, died on 9 March 2005 at the age of 75 years. Jimmy Carter, another gospel veteran, unlike every now and then claiming not a founding member. He has - only since the early 1970s - sung at the Blind Boys Of Mississippi and encountered only in the 1990s to the Blind Boys of Alabama. Since 2013 Paul Beasley is, he has sung with his distinctive falsetto singing in the 1960s and 1970s with the Gospel Keynotes and since the late 70's several years with the Mighty Clouds Of Joy.
From 2002 to 2005, they won four consecutive Grammy for Best Traditional Gospel Album (2005, together with Ben Harper ), this award they won again in 2009, along with a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement.
The group has collaborated with numerous artists, including Aaron Neville, Tom Waits, Mavis Staples, Bonnie Raitt, Randy Travis, Solomon Burke, Lou Reed and Mahalia Jackson. The Blind Boys of Alabama have taken tours with Tom Petty and Peter Gabriel.