The Blind Boys Of Alabama are one of the most successful gospel groups of all time. The five-time Grammy Award-winning group sang their first song together in 1939, giving them a career spanning seven decades, and they’re still going strong. That kind of longevity is attributed to their positive outlook on life, that includes being ready and willing to adapt to change. According npr.com:
“‘When the Blind Boys started out, we weren’t even thinking about all these accolades and all that stuff,’ says founding member Jimmy Carter. ‘We just wanted to get out and sing gospel and tell the world about gospel music. But changes came and we had to change with the times.’
“That’s no small undertaking, considering the times their music has lived through. They formed in the Jim Crow era, lent their voices to the civil rights movement, and have now witnessed the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.”
It is really great to see Black people achieving that level of success and sustaining it for so long. The Blind Boys Of Alabama are still not done with music, they recently released a new album, “I’ll Find A Way.” As reported by washingtonpost.com:
“In more recent times, the group has lent its soul-stirring harmonies to a range of cross-genre collaborations (Peter Gabriel, Ben Harper) and, for its new album, ‘I’ll Find a Way,’ handed over production to Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. Vernon is best known as an indie-folk experimenter, but he’s also a longtime gospel obsessive, which enabled him to approach the project with restrained reverence.
“Purists will find plenty to appreciate, especially the heartfelt, jazz-flavored reading of the spiritual ‘My God is Real’ and the upbeat, hill country shuffle that propels ‘I Shall Not Be Moved.'”
The Blind Boys Of Alabama prove that with the right attitude anything is possible.
Check out the group at work in their video for “There Will Never Be Any Peace” below.
