The Blind Boys of Alabama bring the gospel sound to McCarter Theatre.
By: Susan Van Dongen
Life, like a bottle of fine wine, often improves with age.
Hanging around this world for 72 years has certainly had its advantages for Clarence Fountain, one of the founding members of the legendary gospel group, the Blind Boys of Alabama. He attributes the group’s late-in-life mainstream popularity to good timing, which, in turn, he chalks up to his maker.
"We went to Broadway (in ‘The Gospel at Colonnus’) in the ’80s, and ever since then we’ve been able to go and perform all over the world," says Mr. Fountain, speaking by phone from his home in Baton Rouge, La. "The Broadway thing really put us over the top.
"We’ve done very well. The Lord knows exactly what He’s doing, He knows when to do it and how to do it. So, I’m satisfied. If He’d given success to me when I was young, I wouldn’t have done anything with it. Now I can put it away and save it for a better day."
Coming off last fall’s series of concerts opening for Peter Gabriel, the Blind Boys are on a lengthy national and international tour, which makes a stop at Princeton’s McCarter Theatre Feb. 25. Malian guitar wizard Habib Koité and his band Bamada will open. The Blind Boys will also appear at the Scottish Rite Auditorium in Collingswood March 1.
They’re riding the wave of excitement around their Grammy-nominated 2002 recording, Higher Ground (Real World), which pulls together an assortment of classic and contemporary spiritual songs, many from soulful artists like Aretha Franklin ("Spirit in the Dark"), Curtis Mayfield ("People Get Ready") and Stevie Wonder, who penned the title track.
The Blind Boys also have included Prince’s 1987 song "The Cross," which must have raised a few eyebrows in the traditional gospel community. After all, Prince was the bad boy whose risqué lyrics first launched Tipper Gore on her "decency in music" campaign in the late ’80s. But Mr. Fountain and the other members of the group liked the song and felt it fit in with their tastes.
"Whether Prince likes it or not, he’s got some God in him," Mr. Fountain says, laughing. "’The Cross’ is a gospel tune, it’s a good song. If Prince wrote all of his tunes like that one, we’d do more.
"Here’s the deal," Mr. Fountain continues in his deep bass voice, explaining how the Blind Boys select the music. "Our people bring the tunes to our attention, we sit down and pick them out. If the song is the right song, we take it apart. We listen to the words and see how the words correspond to how we want to sing it. Music is music and if a song is good you can feel the emotion.
"We sing with inspiration from on high. You don’t get that every day. That comes directly from God and not everybody has it. We just happen to be the fortunate ones that do, and we use it but with discretion."
The group, which also includes original members Jimmy Carter and George Scott along with "newbies" Joey Williams, Ricky McKinnie and Bobby Butler, also experimented with works by mainstream pop and rock songwriters for their 2001 recording, Spirit of the Century (Real World). The Grammy-winner found the Blind Boys putting their inspirational spin on songs by the Rolling Stones and Tom Waits.
Mr. Fountain doesn’t have a problem with secular songs and, in fact, disputes categorizing them as such.
"If you listen to the lyrics, you’ll hear that the songs are not really secular," he says. "Take a while to listen carefully. They’re telling you something. For example, ‘People Get Ready’ talks about the train that’s coming. We’re not talking about a real train, we’re talking about a train that comes in your life the train that comes to carry you home.
"People had better get ready," he chuckles. "It’s got to come sooner or later."
On the other hand, the Blind Boys are particular about not sending a disreputable message via someone else’s questionable lyrics.
"The producers brought us one song by Jimi Hendrix and we had to say no to it because of the words," Mr. Fountain says. "It was all this talk about ‘your baby,’ ‘your woman,’ and we just didn’t want to sing about that, so we threw it out."
The Blind Boys first formed more than 60 years ago at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind. Right from the start, the members discovered their vocal mixture of deep, otherworldly bass lines, haunting falsetto and vibrant harmonies produced a potent, pure gospel sound.
They reached a wider audience with their roles in the 1983 production of The Gospel at Colonnus. The Obie Award-winning off-Broadway and Broadway smash reshaped Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus Rex into the form of an African-American church service. Morgan Freeman starred as the preacher and Mr. Fountain was cast as the blind hero, with the rest of the group singing his private thoughts.
"The best thing about the show was that it gave us a chance to go all over the world," Mr. Fountain says. "A lot of people who didn’t know about gospel music found out about us."
Although they had been performing together for almost 50 years, the play took the Blind Boys to another level, garnering the critical attention they had long deserved. The group began to be in demand, recording and touring with a variety of mainstream pop and rock artists, including Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, Bonnie Raitt, Booker T. Jones (of Booker T. and the MGs) and Tom Petty.
"That’s when we came to a cross in the road," Mr. Fountain says. "We met people in the music business who knew about taking chances on groups like us."
One of those individuals was British art-rocker Peter Gabriel, who invited the Blind Boys to do some backing vocals on the soundtrack to Rabbit-Proof Fence as well as his latest album, Up. They also spent time on the road with Mr. Gabriel, opening many of the concerts and joining him onstage for a stunning version of the song "Blue Sky."
Mr. Fountain says until a few years ago he’d only heard of Mr. Gabriel in passing. Now they’re one of the crown jewels on his Real World label.
"We were only aware that Peter Gabriel was the lead singer with Genesis at one time, but I hadn’t paid him any attention," he says. "I didn’t know him from Adam, to tell you the truth. We get along real good, though. He’s been good to us. He said we had the talent to record with him, that there was something unique about us that he heard and liked. So he put us in there and we went on and did the job. From the jump street we knew we could do it."
Again, Mr. Fountain chalks the happy circumstances up to his maker.
"You know, when God has something great for you to do, He puts it in your way," he says. "When He plans something, you don’t have to worry about it, it just happens."
Mr. Fountain says the arena concerts don’t intimidate him, since the Blind Boys had played venues like Madison Square Garden as gospel stars.
"There’s nothing to be afraid of, except, as Roosevelt said, fear itself," he says.
The latest major project they’ve completed is a feature film tentatively titled Fighting Temptation, set for release in August 2003. He doesn’t say much about the movie, except that it’s about gospel and has "a lot of folks in it."
"Movies, Broadway, concerts, yep, we’ve done all that and there’s not too much more we’ve got to do," Mr. Fountain says, reflectively. "When our time is up, I think people will look back and say we’ve done a pretty good job."
The Blind Boys of Alabama play McCarter Theatre, 91 University Place, Princeton, Feb. 25, 8 p.m. Habib Koité and Bamada opens. Tickets cost $32-$35. For information, call (609) 258-2787. On the Web: www.mccarter.org. The Blind Boys also appear at the Scottish Rite Auditorium, 315 W. White Horse Pike, Collingswood, March 1, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $25-$28. For information, call (866) 234-6265. The Blind Boys of Alabama on the Web: www.blindboys.com