Today’s guests are no Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and they’re no Luciano Pavarotti either, but what they do they do very well, in my opinion. And what they do is combine two musical genres, gospel and blues, in a very engaging way. I think they’re worth listening to. If you have not heard them before, permit me to introduce you to The Blind Boys of Alabama, today’s featured group.
Here they are singing “Amazing Grace” to the tune of “The House of the Rising Sun” with a brief glimpse of Don Imus, on whose program they were appearing. I’ve decided not to include a link to an article about Don Imus because the one I found in my research for this post had enough internal links in it that if you ever started clicking on them you would never find your way back to this post.
If gospel/blues (as they say in the red states) or blues/gospel (as they say in the blue states) turns out not to be your cup of tea, I’ll certainly understand. But this is the real thing -- soul music as it was meant to be sung. Perhaps it’s not virtuoso musicianship, but it’s about as authentic as it gets. For all you readers who live outside the south, the Blind Boys of Alabama are the real deal, the genuine article.