His Royal Badness asked to play guitar on “Soldier in the Army of the Lord.”
None of those rifts from “Purple Rain,” just Prince blending into the traditional gospel music as the Blind Boys of Alabama performed at the Knitting Factory club in Hollywood in 2008.
He was a big fan.
As was Bonnie Raitt (a group favorite). Soloman Burke. Eric Clapton. Curtis Mayfield. Oak Ridge Boys. And others who made music with the world-famous gospel music group, which performs in Winston-Salem at 7 p.m., on Thursday at the RamKat.
“We continue to be true to our artistry, ” said longtime member Ricky McKinnie. “We told the Lord we would serve him, and we’ve been doing that for all these years.”
As for the audiences, there’s a cross section of people.
The day after Prince showed up a blog connected to the L.A. Times wrote, “Leave it to His Purpleness to surprise nearly everyone, including the Knitting Factory club owners….”
Recognized as living legends in gospel music by Rolling Stone magazine and others, they have been inducted the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, received two Lifetime Achievement Awards from The National Endowment for the Arts and sung for three presidents in the White House.
They’ve performed on the Tonight Show, Late Night with David Letterman, told their story on 60 Minutes, and hosted their own holiday PBS Special.
The group performs about 100 shows a year.
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While staying true to their traditional gospel roots, they have crossed multiple musical boundaries with their interpretations of everything from traditional gospel favorites to contemporary spiritual material by songwriters such as Clapton, Prince, and Tom Waits.
And they get in on the gag. Some people thought the “Blind Boys” was a gimmick. A big comedian made a joke that they could really see behind those dark glasses.
So, McKinnie intentionally points out into the crowd at the end of shows and says, “I’m glad you came,” as if he’s found someone in the crowd.
It was not a gimmick, although one of the earliest members had his sight.
“Our disability is not a handicap,” McKinnie said. “What we do is sing good gospel music.”
The group’s original members came together at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind in Talladega, Alabama in 1939, and played on the Black gospel circuit, mostly in churches, auditoriums and eventually stadiums. Their 1948 hit “I Can See Everybody’s Mother But Mine” is said to have influenced gospel, R&B and rock ‘n’ roll artists.
The group has opportunities to cross over into popular music in the 1950’s along with their friend Sam Cooke, but they stayed true to their calling, according to their induction in the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. In the 1960s, they joined the Civil Rights Movement, performing at benefits for the Rev. Martin Luther King.
The group got mainstream exposure in 1983, after the group was cast in the theatrical production of an African-American musical version of the story of Oedipus. “The Gospel at Colonus” won an Obie for Best Musical in 1984.
Their most recent Grammy was in 2024, which is heartening for the group, which has changed faces over the years with age and health.
Collectively, they’ve traveled to almost every continent.
McKinnie remembers performing in Lebanon in the Middle East, which has a diverse religious makeup. He admits he was a little nervous about the show not knowing how others might take them calling on the name of Jesus. Not Clarence Fountain, one of the original members.
“”The first thing he said when he hit the stage was, I want you to know one thang: We didn’t come here looking for Jesus, we brought him with us,” McKinnie said. “We sure made some believers when we left there.”
Nancy.McLaughlin@greensboro.com
336-373-7049
@nmclaughlinNR
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