The Blind Boys of Alabama are recognized worldwide as living legends of gospel music. Celebrated by The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and The Recording Academy/GRAMMYs with Lifetime Achievement Awards, inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and winners of five GRAMMY® Awards, they have attained the highest levels of achievement in a career that spans over 70 years. The Blind Boys are known for crossing multiple musical boundaries with their remarkable interpretations of everything from traditional gospel favorites to contemporary spiritual material by songwriters such as Eric Clapton, Prince and Tom Waits. They have appeared on recordings with many artists, including Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, Aaron Neville, Susan Tedeschi, Ben Harper, Patty Griffin and Taj Mahal. Recently, the group’s decades-long mission of spreading light and love has taken on even deeper context, as they’ve reckoned with the loss of two of their own, Paul Beasley and Benjamin Moore, both longtime members of the Blind Boys tight-knit family. The new album ‘Echoes Of The South’ is released in their honor – as well as for the group’s recently-retired leader Jimmy Carter – and keeps the Blind Boys’ long-held mission statement at its core: “As long as everybody gives all that they have to give and we sing songs that touch the heart, we’ll live on forever.” The Blind Boys of Alabama will perform a musical set at Word of South and also discuss their new book, Spirit of the Century, written with Preston Lauterbach.
Blind Boys of Alabama
