Blind Boys/New Album (In New Orleans)

[chrisjoseph]

FOUR-TIME GRAMMY WINNERS THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA GET 'DOWN IN NEW
ORLEANS'

NEW ALBUM, OUT JAN. 29 ON TIME LIFE

RECORDED IN THE CRESCENT CITY WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

ALLEN TOUSSAINT, PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND, HOT 8 BRASS BAND

They may be from Alabama but they've been spending time in the
Crescent City. Four-time Grammy winners The Blind Boys of Alabama's
new album 'Down In New Orleans,' their first in three years, will be
released January 29, 2008 on the Time Life Music label. Recording for
the first time in New Orleans, The Blind Boys are backed here by a
trio of world-class New Orleans musicians: David Torkanowsky (piano),
Roland Guerin (bass) and Shannon Powell (drums). Other guests include
legendary pianist/producer and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Allen
Toussaint, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and the horn-heavy Hot 8
Brass Band, one of the city's most vital young acts. But the band's
deeply soulful and natural voices remain in the spotlight on 'Down In
Orleans.' After performing together for over six decades, The Blind
Boys of Alabama have enjoyed one of the more striking comebacks in
recent memory. Their last several albums have earned these hipster
septuagenarians the best reviews and record sales of their career,
four Grammy Awards in a four year span, and a completely new,
contemporary audience.

'Down In New Orleans' track listing

1. Free At Last

2. Make a Better World (with The Hot 8 Brass Band)

3. How I Got Over

4. You Got To Move

5. Across the Bridge (with The Preservation Hall Jazz Band)

6. You Better Mind

7. Down by the Riverside (with The Preservation Hall Jazz Band and
Allen Toussaint)

8. If I Could Help Somebody (with Allen Toussaint)

9. Uncloudy Day (with The Preservation Hall Jazz Band)

10. A Prayer

11. I've Got A Home

12. I'll Fly Away (with The Hot 8 Brass Band)

##

[saturn]

I will certainly be looking for this one.

[Michelino]

That's a must have.

[BigDag]

Yep, sure is.

[jtd7]

Oooh, thanks for this post! We're going to hear them here in Philly Sunday night -- it's billed as a "Holiday Show" and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band is on the bill with them. I hope they do some songs form the forthcoming album.

[Jordan]

In case you haven't checked Ben Harper's newest CD -- the Blind Boys are featured and it is awesome!

[neverleft]

Thanks for the post, I'm looking forward to the CD, also looking forward to seeing them at the Disney Hall later this month.

[VWGal]

I will have to own this one! They are here with Taj Mahal on May 28 at a concert hall. I think my pal is the promoter in western Canada, so maybe some freebies will fall my way. It will be a great show!

[chrisjoseph]

From New Orleans Magazine, December 2007---

Friday 21. of December 2007
By: Jason Berry


Down in New Orleans, due in stores late January, is the latest CD by a legendary gospel group: The Blind Boys of Alabama. The vocal harmonies find a Crescent City groove on cuts that feature accompanying work by Allen Toussaint, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, pianist David Torkonowsky, bassist Roland Guerin, drummer Shannon Powell and the Hot 8 Brass Band.

These stellar artists lay down a swinging signature that puts the Alabama group on a new threshold. That is not a chauvinistic form of praise. The Blind Boys have four Grammy Awards and their version of “Way Down in the Hole” was the theme song of the HBO crime series, The Wire. This new CD marks a turn in the singers’ unfolding path in pop culture. Toussaint’s piano licks on “Down by the Riverside” have ringing tonal currents and the Preservation Hall band adds warmth in the rhythm on an ethereal version of “Uncloudy Day.”

The rolling voices of the singers echo the down-home spiritual and gospel singing that’s heard today mostly in small choirs or quartets, when it’s heard at all. In contrast, gospel music is a huge world of composers, arrangers, musicians and mass choirs feeding on new material. The Blind Boys formed in 1939 at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind and traveled on the gospel circuit for decades. Two founding members, Clarence Fountain and Jimmy Carter, made the long haul and work now with Bishop Billy Bowers, Joey Williams, Ricky McKinnie, Bobby Butler and Tracy Pierre.

The beauty of this tradition lay in its sonorous linkage to the spirituals and sorrow songs that rose from slavery to a plateau of memory in black churches of the early 20th century. The songs carried a history that rocked with a power all its own and rolled like a mighty river into the stylizations of post-World War II R&B. Yet we know far less about the roots of gospel than we do about jazz and ragtime, thanks to curious early journalists and song sleuths. The forging of a repertoire that came to be called gospel drew on the songs of memory and pastors absorbing standards, like “Amazing Grace” among others, from white Protestant hymnals. How songs were sung in white and black congregations, divided for generations by segregation, registered profoundly different meanings, as black groups went about stylistically refitting lyrics to suit the needs of a culture on the rise. “Uncloudy Day,” with its dream of a heavenly end, as sung on this CD, extends the idea of freedom sung by slaves in “Steal Away.”

The beauty of gospel singing these days is a magnet to ever-growing audiences of white people who feel a common chord in themes of the older lyrics and the emotional way they are sung. Down in New Orleans gives this phenomenon an ironic twist in the Hot 8 players teaming with the Blind Boys on “Make a Better World.” The lyrics come from the 1960s R&B composer Earl King, the hand behind the Mardi Gras Indians anthem, “Big Chief,” first popularized by Professor Longhair. It was James Booker, the brilliant, broken, dazzlingly manic keyboard prince who seized on “Make A Better World” as a standard in his performances. Hearing Booker sing “Let’s all pitch in, and make a better world to live in,” one hears the best impulses of the R&B tradition, a bouncing paean to unity. The song captured optimistic yearnings for a post-civil rights era:

You got to live and give
Care and care
Put some love in the air
And when your neighbor’s down
Pick him up
No one can live in despair
Try to pitch in
Do your thing
Make a better world to live in
Everybody sing, sing, sing …

Heard today, on a gospel CD with a gravelly voice calling the congregates to a cause of making joy, one appreciates the timelessness of Earl King’s song, which now could function as a post-Katrina call to common cause.

The Blind Boys’ down-home approach is a far cry from James Booker, with that star emblazoned on his eye patch and God-knows-what in the way of chemicals coursing through his veins, all but singing for his own redemption. Irony abounds in the sweet, almost decorous stamp the Hot 8 players bring as rhythm section to the Blind Boys of Alabama as they retrofit an urban R&B standard of a generation ago into a gospel tune of the new millennium. Thus does the river of music roll.

[VWGal]

I CANNOT wait for this one! First time I heard the Boys was in the gospel tent at Fest 2004....they are true treasures.

[Rossvegas]

Oooh, I just had a vision...Blind Boys at Fest 2008? Perhaps on one of the big stages with Allan, et al? Hmmmm?

[Staxsun]

A vision, hmmm. It is a good cd. I have one to listen to, but I've been so busy that I only have gotten a brief ear on each track. I'm hoping to give it the full treatment this week. I may play a track on Friday.

[Freakwinox]

They played "Free at Last" in Philly a few weeks back. Sounded great. They said we would get "just one" from the new CD and made sure everyone knew January 29th was the big day (correcting the MC who said early-February). Would love to see them at fest.

[chrisjoseph]

it won't be 2nd weekend if they play JF...they are in Europe:

5/1/2008 The Helix Dublin IRELAND
5/2/2008 City of Derry Jazz Festival Derry NORTHERN Ireland
5/3/2008 Jazz Cafe London ENGLAND

[Rossvegas]

Hmmm. My vision has been a little blurry these days....uh, no disrespect intended to the Blind Boys... :>)

[chrisjoseph]

The first single from the new album (song is called Free at Last) is available on iTunes. Must say, it sounds GREAT!

[Rossvegas]

No kidding! did you check out the video preview? A little Preservation Hall, the Musicians Village...oh yeah.

[Staxsun]

The first single from the new album (song is called Free at Last) is available on iTunes. Must say, it sounds GREAT!

If you listened to my show, you'd hear more. It's a great CD.

[AtPontchartrain]

Reading the cd liner notes by Ben Sandmel, there is no mention of one of the two remaining founding members, Clarence Fountain, who does not appear on the album. He is, by the way, the group's one Louisiana resident.

Okay, from the Blind Boys website:

=========

Clarence Fountain will be performing with The Blind Boys of Alabama whenever possible but his availability is subject to his health, which has been compromised by diabetes. Even so, the Blind Boys' energetic show will remain as strong as ever with Ben Moore stepping in for Clarence. Ben has performed over 50 shows with the Blind Boys, has had his own Grammy-nominated gospel career, and in the past also worked with the likes of Otis Redding and James Brown. Clarence appreciates your thoughts and prayers. In the meantime, the Blind Boys' tradition continues.

[Michelino]

Thanks. I too was looking for a reference to Clarence on the album details. Last time we saw them in 2007, it was Jimmy Carter who was ill and Clarence was front center.

[djgriff]

Blind Boys website is offering the CD and a tour t-shirt for $35 in a pre order combo. The CD comes out on January 29th. You can also pre order the CD on Amazon for $13.97.

[water angel]

Clarence was in Detroit for his birthday recently & he looked pretty darned good. I spoke with Jimmy last week & he's feelin' just fine. He was quite pleased when I told him about all the buzz here about the new c.d.

[chrisjoseph]

Review from today's Los Angeles Times:

CD: The Blind Boys of Alabama
The gospel group hopes 'Down in New Orleans' lends a helpful voice to the rebuilding effort.
By Steve Hochman
Special to The Times

January 27, 2008

The Blind Boys of Alabama "Down in New Orleans" (Time Life) * * * ½

The former president isn't the only Jimmy Carter who's done some work for Habitat for Humanity. Another gentleman with the same name visited the organization's New Orleans Musicians' Village last year with some associates to help rebuild that hurricane-devastated city -- though not with the usual tools.

"We told the people we can't see how to use a hammer and nail," said this Carter, co-founder of the venerable gospel group the Blind Boys of Alabama. "But we can bring hope with our music. And that's what we did."

Carter and the Blind Boys were in town not just to provide inspiration, though, but to draw some as well. The result is "Down in New Orleans," the latest in a string of intriguing collaborative concept projects from the group, which has become known for reaching outside its traditions while remaining true to the vocal-quartet style at its core since the original lineup formed at school in 1939.

In theory it's a natural. Gospel is crucial in nearly all New Orleans music. Several songs on this set ("Down by the Riverside," "Uncloudy Day," "I'll Fly Away") are standards in the second-line and Dixieland repertoires of the tradition-minded Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the young, exuberant Hot 8 Brass Band.

Both provide backing on the project, as does long-time NOLA music giant Allen Toussaint. But the Big Easy rhythms, deceptively complex syncopations and shifting patterns can be tricky.

"Only thing I can say is they have a rhythm, they have a beat," says Carter, trying to put his finger on the musical challenge they encountered. "I can't really explain it -- a beat that's unique. But once you learn how to follow that beat, you got it going on, man!"

At that, he breaks out in a hearty, raspy laugh.

The learning process shows a bit on "Down in New Orleans" (in stores Tuesday). Opening track "Free at Last" shows a surprisingly natural mesh between the group's classic vocal-quartet style and the nimble second-line of an ad-hoc band of pianist David Torkanowsky, bassist Ronald Guerin and drummer Shannon Powell -- all top-notch locals. But on the next song, Earl King's nongospel but quite fitting "Make a Better World," the Hot 8 tames its usually wild horn-play too much, restricting the funk factor.

After that, though, it's a rewarding mix, the singers responding to the Preservation Hall band's jazz-funeral joy on "Uncloudy Day," two tributes to gospel great and New Orleans native Mahalia Jackson (with Carter soaring on the healing message "If I Could Help Somebody," supported by Toussaint's piano) and the Hot 8 really letting loose on the closing "I'll Fly Away."

Carter says he absorbed a lot in New Orleans -- the food as well as the music, and he's craving some of the red beans and hot sausage he had. But mostly he hopes the group was able to express the emotions its members encountered in the city where people are fighting to bounce back. In that regard, they nailed it.

"I talked to some people there," he says. "Found out they don't like to tell about it. Just trying to live and move on."

Albums are rated on a scale of four stars (excellent), three stars (good), two stars (fair and one star (poor). Albums reviewed have been released except as indicated.

On the Record is a periodic feature combining critical assessment of noteworthy new recordings with input from the artists.

[Jordan]

Just saw the blind boys on Friday at the Gospel Caravan show in NYC and they were great. I have seen them before and the last time I saw them, they were just ok, but on Friday they had energy, sounded great, and played a decent set. They did 2 songs from the new album which were solid.

[BigDag]

Received the cd in the morning mail; it really has a funky New Orleans groove. It's worth a listen.

[jazzjones]

I've been listening to this one quite a lot -- definitely lives up to the hype. Inventive redesign of classic spirituals, with NOLA rhythms.
If interested, check out my review: http://lvcitylife.com/articles/2008/01/31/music/cd/iq_19417127.txt