Blind Boys of Alabama bring soul to Met for Freedom Fest

Ricky McKinnie started losing his sight due to glaucoma when he was 20 and was blind by the age of 23, but that didn’t stop him from sharing the gospel music he loves so much.

McKinnie, who already had a gold album under his belt with the Gospel Keynotes, continued performing and eventually was asked to join the Blind Boys of Alabama around 1988 — 13 years after he went blind.

He has been with the group for 29 years now and will be with them when they perform at the city of Hoover’s Freedom Fest on the Fourth of July at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium.

“We’re looking forward to it,” Mc-Kinnie said in an interview from his home in Atlanta.

The Blind Boys of Alabama, who have won five Grammys and been inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, performed two shows to small audiences at the Hoover Library Theatre inSeptember 2015.

This year, they are scheduled to put on a 75-minute show beginning at 7:30 p.m. on July 4 that will be followed by fireworks.

Erin Colbaugh, the city of Hoover’s events coordinator, said city officials in past years have been able to feature a lot of up-and-coming musicians from Hoover and surrounding areas for the city’s free Fourth of July music festival, but they decided to up their game this year in connection with the city’s 50th anniversary and bring in talent that is internationally acclaimed.

The Blind Boys of Alabama, since going mainstream in the mid-1980s, have performed all over the world, including Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, McKinnie said. They’re still going strong, with 150 to 200 shows a year, he said. They’re in demand throughout the United States and have tour dates booked this summer in Canada, the United Kingdom and Paris.

“We’re excited to have them perform,”Colbaugh said.

The Blind Boys of Alabama started singing together at the age of nine, at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind in 1939, as the Happy Land Jubilee Singers and became known as the Blind Boys of Alabama in 1944.

They toured the South during the 1940s and 1950s and in the early 1960s sang at benefits for the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. But gospel fans started to drift away and follow singers who originated in the church but crossed over into secular music, and the Blind Boys of Alabama saw their audiences decline as they stuck with their gospel roots.

Their popularity resurged after they had a starring role in “The Gospel at Colonus,” which won an Obie (off Broadway) Award for best musical in 1984 before going to Broadway in 1988. That show opened their music up to new audiences, and the group gained more fans as they began doing gospel-inspired versions of more mainstream songs.

Over more than 75 years, the group has recorded more than 60 albums, blending traditional gospel music with contemporary spiritual material by artists that include Tom Waits, Prince, Eric Clapton, Peter Gabriel, K.D. Lang, Lou Reed, Willie Nelson and theRolling Stones.

The group has appeared on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “Late Night with David Letterman,” “The Grammy Awards,” “60 Minutes”, “The Colbert Report” and their own holiday special on PBS. They also received lifetime achievement awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Over the years, some of the group members left, and new ones replaced them. There were reunions of the original members as well, but most of them are now deceased.

Today, only one member of the five-member group is listed as a “founding member” on the group’s website. That’s Jimmy Carter, who is from Birmingham and considered the group’s lead singer.

Carter, who is now in his late 80s, was enrolled at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind and a member of the chorus there when the Happy Land Jubilee Singers started performing, but he was too young to join the group when it first began touring and was not in a recorded performance with the Blind Boys until the 1982 record “I’m a Soldier in the Army of the Lord,” according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Other current members include McKinnie, music director and 25-year member Joey Williams, 10-year member Ben Moore and four-year member Paul Beasley, McKinnie said. 

All the members are blind, except Williams, McKinnie said. Carter is the only one of them who is from Alabama. McKinnie and Beasley are from Atlanta, while Moore is from Pensacola, Florida, and Williams lives in New York City.

The group also has a four-piece band that performs with them, McKinnie said.

When asked about his most memorable performance, McKinnie said he liked performing in Ireland and England, but “we have a great time everywhere we go.”

The group also has performed at the White House for Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

“It was extraordinary. We were really proud to be there, and we were elated that they asked us to come,” McKinnie said.

The group loves coming to Alabama and tries to come whenever they are invited, he said. People coming to the Hoover Met can expect to see a show full of gospel music with a traditional soul feel, he said.

They will play a mix of old gospel favorites, such as “Amazing Grace,” “Look Where He Brought Me From” and “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” but also will sing some newer songs such as “Higher Ground,” “People Get Ready” and “Spirit of the Sky,” McKinnie said.

While the Blind Boys have been around a long time, their faith and mission keep them going, McKinnie said.

“This is the Blind Boys’ mission: to let the world know that a disability doesn’t have to be a handicap,” he said. “It’s not about what you can’t do. It’s about what you do.”

Gates will open at the Hoover Met for the 2017 Freedom Fest at 5 p.m. Families are encouraged to come early for a classic and sports car show and children’s activities that include inflatables, building station, face painting, balloon twisters and a photo booth.

The city also plans to bring back the ZOOperstars, a group of mascot-like characters in inflatable costumes that dance to music. They have been extremely popular each year they have performed at the festival, Colbaugh said.

The Hoover Met officially seats 10,800, but nearly 12,000 people turned out for last year’s Freedom Fest, city officials estimated. Concession stands at the Met will be open.