Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

The first time I saw the Blind Boys Of Alabama live they were ripping up a somewhat staid and stuffy audience at the Oxford Playhouse sometime in the 1980s. When they sang "The Last Time" I assumed they would not be on the road for much longer and yet here we are, almost 40 years later, with the Grammy Award winning 'Echoes Of The South', named after the radio station that got behind the boys back in the 1940s. Of course, like the King's Singers, the line up of the Blind Boys has not remained fixed, indeed even the 'Five' part of the name comes and goes. To my mind, the great line up featured Jimmy Carter, Clarence Fountain and George Scott but, as the years pass, these good brothers have stood down with this recording being Jimmy Carter's swansong as he moves into a well-earned retirement aged 91. Also leaving the stage are Ben Moore (1941-2022) and Paul Beasley (1944-2023) leaving Ricky McKinnie, Rev Julius Love and Joey Williams to keep the flag flying, and, according to blindboys.com there is a US tour about to start (as of March 2024). The mood is at times elegiac ("The Last Time" - again - and "Wide River To Cross2 for example) but the boys can still let rip ("Send It On Down" and "Nothing But Love" stand out) and the closing take of Stevie Wonder's "Heaven Help Us All" remains a song for today. Perhaps the Blind Boys have outgrown the label 'gospel' as a musical term. They surely still sing the Good News loud and clear but the genre is now somewhere between Americana and roots and none the worse for that. If this is truly the last time the Blind Boys Of Alabama enter a recording studio then, like the old troopers they are, they leave us wanting more.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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