The Blind Boys of Alabama: a gospel group that began at a school for the blind in 1939

They met as children at a segregated school for the blind in Alabama. In 1939, a group of boys at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind in Talladega began singing together. More than eight decades later, the group they founded, the Blind Boys of Alabama, was still touring and recording, with Grammy awards and a place in gospel history.

The school and the quartet tradition

The Alabama Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind was a segregated school for Black children with disabilities. Music was part of the curriculum, and the boys sang in the school choir. Founding members included Clarence Fountain, Jimmy Carter and George Scott. Fountain led the group for many years. The group grew from the gospel quartet tradition, in which male singers performed close harmony, often with a powerful lead. They moved from the gentle jubilee style to the intense “hard gospel” sound.

The South, civil rights and Colonus

In the 1940s and 1950s, they toured churches and auditoriums across the segregated South, facing the hardships of travel for Black musicians at the time. The group performed at events connected to the civil rights movement, and their music carried messages of hope and endurance. In the 1980s, they appeared in The Gospel at Colonus, a musical retelling of a Greek tragedy in gospel style, which played on Broadway and brought them to new audiences.

Grammys and legacy

From the 2000s, the group won several Grammy awards, including for albums such as Spirit of the Century, which included gospel versions of songs by artists such as Tom Waits and the Rolling Stones. They have collaborated with a wide range of artists, from Peter Gabriel to Ben Harper. Clarence Fountain died in 2018, and George Scott in 2005. Jimmy Carter continued to lead the group into his nineties.

The Blind Boys of Alabama are among the longest-lasting groups in American music.

Their sound and honours

Their singing mixes deep bass, tight harmonies and powerful leads. The group toured constantly, including overseas. The group were inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame and received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, honours that recognised decades of singing together. The Blind Boys began singing in a school built to keep them apart. Their voices ended up carrying gospel music to stages around the world.