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Call them anything but handicapped

Hip-swaying, hand-clapping music from a visionary gospel group
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By Frank Kuznik
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
April 30th, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
McKinnie, third from left, speaks for the group when he says, ?I lost my sight, but I never lost my direction.?
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The Blind Boys of Alabama


When: Tuesday, May 6, at 8
Where: Lucerna Great Hall
Tickets: 690-1,590 Kč, available through Ticketpro and at the venue
For more information, check
Blindboys.com
“A disability doesn’t have to be a handicap.”
So says Eric “Ricky” McKinnie, drummer and vocalist with The Blind Boys of Alabama, and he should know. McKinnie lost his sight to glaucoma at the age of 23, but he didn’t let that interrupt what was already a promising musical career. In fact, quite the opposite — it made him a natural fit for one of America’s best and longest-running gospel groups, which is bringing some old-time religion to the big hall at Lucerna next week.
The Blind Boys were founded in 1939 by five men who met at the Tallageda Institute for the Blind in Alabama. Initially called the Happyland Singers, they went on the gospel circuit with a distinctive four-part harmony that over time was dubbed “the Alabama style.” Members came and went and styles waxed and waned over the next five decades, but the core of the group endured with tight renditions of the uplifting, hand-clapping music common to many black churches in the American South.
The group remained one of the better-kept secrets in American music until 2000, when it took on professional management and studio help. “We had done everything ourselves before that,” McKinnie says. “Basically, we learned that people need people. We stepped out with a booking agency, PR people and new producers, which was one of the best moves we could have made. That’s when the Grammys started.”
The Blind Boys won Grammy Awards for Best Soul/Traditional Gospel Album a stunning four years in a row, from 2001 through 2004. The music had a contemporary burnish, but at heart was not very different from what the group had been singing at religious gatherings for half a century.
“It’s traditional gospel music, which always has a message or a story,” McKinnie says. “We just put a Blind Boys spin on it.”
Though it’s an intangible, the shared disability of the group’s members adds an extra dimension to their music, a heartfelt underpinning for songs that are already about hope and inspiration in difficult times. That’s particularly evident on The Blind Boys’ latest release, Down in New Orleans, which was recorded in the Big Easy with some of the city’s premier jazz and R&B musicians. With New Orleans still trying to dig out and rebuild from the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the group wanted to do its part.
“We couldn’t go to New Orleans and pick up a hammer and nails to help rebuild the city,” says McKinnie. “But we felt we could help rebuild the spirit of the city, and give people the courage to keep on keepin’ on.”
There was a musical factor in the decision to record in New Orleans as well. “We’ve always liked that New Orleans sound; they do it right down there,” says McKinnie. “Like they say, ‘often imitated, never duplicated.’ ”
The Blind Boys come about as close as you can get on their New Orleans disc, with sharp backup from the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the Hot 8 Brass Band adding a cajun flavor to standards such as “Down by the Riverside” and “I’ll Fly Away.” Pianist Allen Toussaint spices several of the tracks with hot R&B licks, and “You Got to Move” features Carl LeBlanc on banjo and Bennie Pete on tuba, an unlikely combination that works perfectly in this setting. Add the group’s trademark harmonies on well-chosen cuts like “If I Can Help Somebody,” and you’ve got a stirring, soulful collection of devotional music — all with a great beat.
The Blind Boys performed here last year, which McKinnie remembers as “a great time,” though he seems to have Prague confused with some other European city when he adds, “The food there was really good.” This time around, he says to expect a mix of the old and new, with selections from all the group’s recordings, including the latest.
“Tell people that we don’t come to preach; we come to sing,” he says. “Everybody’s going to clap hands, dance and have a good time. Tell them if they miss the Blind Boys, they’re really missing something.”

Frank Kuznik can be reached at fkuznik@praguepost.com


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