Although the Blind Boys of Alabama have been singing gospel music for
more than five decades, it's only recently that the group has had the
benefit of a major record company behind it. Led by founding member
Clarence Fountain, the group has also featured Eric McKinney, George
Scott, Caleb Butler, Johnny Fields, Jimmy Carter, Joey Williams,
Donald Dillion, and Aubrey Blount. From their inception in the 1930s,
when all were boys, the group's members turned their blindness into
their chief selling point, and in fact, all members of the group
except one are blind. They began singing when all were students at the
Talladega Institute for the Deaf and Blind in Alabama, but didn't
begin recording until 1948. As a youth, Fountain heard the legendary
Golden Gate Quartet on the radio; the early Five Blind Boys of Alabama
took their musical cues from that group. The group began singing
professionally as the Happy Land Jubilee Singers, and for years lived
a day-to-day, dollar-to-dollar existence touring the South.
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19/05/2015 Last update