Album Review: The Blind Boys Of Alabama, Almost Home  (Single Lock Records)

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Spanning eight decades as professional performers, The Blind Boys of Alabama are America. Founder and magnificent inspirational lead singer Clarence Fountain is here. He died a year after Almost Home’s original release in 2017. Jimmy Carter is here. A little younger than Clarence, he joined the Blind Boys in the early eighties, after serving time in other Gospel groups.

First saw the group, with these two men leading, sometime around the Springbok tour of 1981 in New Zealand. Fell down on my knees in the first minute. A moment when recognition and understanding hit you in an instant.

Everything understood. Elvis said; Rock’n’Roll music is basically Gospel and Rhythm’n’Blues.

Saw them perform at WOMAD in March this year. The last festival gathering for a while now as the very existence of live music brings us to our knees for a different reason.

The Blind Boys have enjoyed a renewed following over the last decade blending more contemporary sounds with their roots. They have collaborated with Ben Harper, Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt, Bon Iver. Way Down in the Hole came from Tom Waits. But the Blind Boys version was preferred for The Wire. This is the show they presented at WOMAD 2020.

This album is presented as a testimonial of their legacy, and so is entirely composed of music as per Elvis’s definition. Several songwriters, including Ruthie Foster, Chris Jacobs and Marc Cohn have contributed compositions, some based on interviews discussing the life stories of the two senior members.

Like the opening track, Stay on the Gospel Side. Soft keyboards, melodic Country Soul guitar. The story of Clarence Fountain travelling from Selma to Talladega, to attend the Alabama Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind.

I was bound to get whipped/ If I did wrong or if I did right/ I was lost but now I’m found/ Amazing grace how sweet the sound/ One night on the radio/ I heard the Golden Gate Quartet/ Sang for the Lord and I ain’t stop singing yet.

Let My Mother Live has the lead sung by Jimmy Carter, as a lament. Starts with a swamp delta blues guitar lick, and then comes in with Country Soul melodic backing. Arrangement is spacious and uncluttered, with a tasty blues guitar in the middle. Recalling the classic Fifties Chess studio sound. Or Jim Stewart at the mixing desk at Stax Records in the Sixties.

I said the classic sound. That’s not entirely true and Pray For Peace is Soul Funk. But the Gospel is not far away with some Hard Style testifying. Organ playing similar to Billy Preston, drums pick up the tempo and lead the song. This is where James Brown worked out his sound. The Godfather originally the drummer and learning how to scream with the Famous Flames. There is a call for peace and name checks for Selma, Birmingham, Cleveland and Memphis. Martin Luther King was standing here today.

Singing Brings Us Closer is Deep Soul with a superb vocal performance. Relentlessly redemptive in spirit. Staying closer to Soul than traditional Gospel.

Almost Home is another Deep Soul classic with Carter taking the lead. He is accompanied by a lone piano, as he recounts the journey from Alabama to the World and back again. But there is sorrow in the voice, and heartbreak as the harmony singers come in. Sorrow and inspiration, as it is ultimately a death song as the train that starts the trip is the train that is bringing him home.

Live Forever lifts the mood and the heart. Stays in a Country Soul groove, a song written by Billy Joe Shaver.

Train Fare starts with a frail catch in the singer’s voice, and strengthens with the sympathetic backing of the others. Infectious hooks in the music, makes a relatively simple song inspirational, and conjures up the spirits of Little Richard, Sam Cooke and Otis Redding.

I Can See. A walking bass, blues licks on lead guitar. The gospel sound moves towards Al Green and the Hi Records sound. Tender and tough

I Was Called. Slow and lugubrious. A mournful solemn tone, as a swamp blues guitar sounds an ominous note. Backing singers lift the mood and slowly the inspiration rises and the dark shadows are pushed back.

That resignation and sorrow can be heard in some of the black voices responding to the recent racial violence from America.

Bob Dylan has two songs covered by the Blind Boys. I Shall Be Released is a chestnut of the same stature as Blowin’ in the Wind. Sung in a falsetto recalling Richard Manuel of the Band. Black and White coming together. Dylan inspired and gave courage to a lot of Black musicians to express race and identity issues, all the way up to Hendrix.

The closer is also Dylan. See By Faith. An inspirational song of the same calibre of the two mentioned above. It is a simple sing-along folk tune. This is America, but the one that Woody Guthrie also recognised when he wrote This Land is Your Land.

And so, we address what it means to be American by the one of its greatest musical institutions. This was first released three years ago but it speaks directly to the turbulence and anger of this year, 2020. This album carries pain and suffering, but it has something that is being missed. The Blind Boys have dignity. Black people love America and they want to stand alongside it too. They are as much a part of America as White is. In fact, that is the only way forward.

This is a classic album, as much as any of their albums. If you’re a long-term fan, or new to them it does not matter. It will reach you.

Rev Orange Peel

Rev Orange Peel
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