A soulful music group is coming to the Tobin Center next week. Turns out, they’ve been touring quite a while. “The group went on the road in 1944. June 10, 1944."
That’s a long time!
“Yeah, it’s been about 70 years.”
The band is Blind Boys of Alabama, a five-time Grammy Award-winning group. Eric “Ricky” McKinnie plays the drums, and has been singing with them for many a decade, and celebrated four Grammy Awards along the way with them.
“I’ve been working with the Blind Boys for about 40 years.”
They mix up gospel and soulful pop music.
“We have a lot of fun every night because we don’t believe in singing to a conservative crowd. We like a noisy crowd, so we have a good time every night.”
Y’know I, was listening to your version of 'Amazing Grace' and it seemed to be a mash up between that song and 'House of the Rising Sun.'
“We had a producer on our first Grammy-winning record, and he said ‘man, I got this song — ‘House of the Rising Sun’— and he said if we put ‘em both together how it’ll work. And we said ‘no, we can’t do that!’ So we tried it, and the people loved it.”
Blind Boys of Alabama are playing along with Mavis Staples Tuesday night, Dec. 16.
“If you come feeling bad, we’re going to try and do our best to make you feel good.”
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