Lauren Hobar
Staff Writer
Photo Courtesy Virgin Records
The Blind Boys of Alabama introduced themselves to me years ago through my dad’s car speakers.
I had never heard such a familiar sound, and it resonates again in their newest release “There Will Be a Light.” The sound is unknowingly cool like the kid that plays the trumpet instead of the guitar.
When I discovered the Blind Boys’ name was not just a funky appeal to the alliterative sense, but that the boys were actually blind, I was even more intrigued.
One gaze at their picture, and they had me. (What could be better than three bluesy black laugh-lined musicians pouring out their rich songed souls?) So I became a girl with a crush.
But like all crushes, habitual sighting is key. The sound stayed in my dad’s car, and I got out to go to Sunday school. I never made it back to the Blind Boys until this past week. The Blind Boys of Alabama entered into my car, in the greater Los Angeles area.
Allow me to introduce you to my old friends, Clarence Fountain, Jimmy Carter and George Scott along with Ben Harper, who is fully sighted, but collaborated with the Boys on this album.
They came with drums, loose beats and refreshing words. Harper sang first and the Boys moseyed in behind him with an ancient presence.
They were saying “take my hand,” talking to the Lord like they were talking to a friend. For a second I looked around and almost asked “who, me?” But they weren’t singing to me, they weren’t singing at me, they were just singing.
With voices as natural as a handhold, these musicians reminded me that this music sounds unplanned, but in a good way, as if the musicians themselves are surprised at this hum that strains organically from their own fingers, lips and tongues.
The songs are as individual as the artists who collaborate for the album. The Blind Boys in their 70-something rough watered rippletones are smoother than the sweetness of a children’s chorus, while Harper at the forefront is wispy and crisper than ever.
But together all is complete, the vocals and the lyrics and the instruments and the story in complementing harmony. From the piano-laden “Wicked Man” and the softer 1950s feeling tune “Where Could I Go” to the solely instrumental “11th Commandment” and solely vocal “Mother Pray,” Ben Harper and the Blind Boys create a musical conversation, and they mean the words they speak.
Though the harmonies and instruments are often layered, they never outdo one another.
And let me tell you what sealed this CD for me — the title track, “There Will Be a Light.” This song has the treasure inside it, the vocals like record-player crackle, so old and lovely. At about two minutes, thirty seconds, he is my man that Blind Boy.
And here I am, a white girl singing along with four black men. We are friends, as we sing “there will be, there will be, there will be a light …”
I do the thing that I do when the music is good. Turn, turn, turn it up, beat my wrists together twice (for a precise effect) like a cha-cha dancer and wail flamboyantly because it hurts like a grade-school crush.
We are all trumpet cases. We all carry the song differently.
The Blind Boys carry it loosely, unseeing through their rock ’n’ rollesque shades that are blacker than a hole in the heart.
And it’s true what they say in their song. There will be a light, and it never goes out. All good music sings songs like this to try to make us see.
09-30-2004
