Saturday, April 2, 2011

The Blind Boys of Alabama

One of the things that I'm loving about doing monthly themes on this blog is that they focus my attention in a whole new way. I talk frequently on this blog about my NPR addiction but usually I listen generally without keeping an ear out for specifics.

It's only two days into the month and that's already starting to change. Yesterday I picked up on the turmoil in Afghanistan, today I heard about a new CD on the Tavis Smiley show that I wouldn't really have paid attention to at any other time.

It's a country-gospel album by five-time Grammy winners The Blind Boys of Alabama and it's called "Take the High Road". I'm not usually a fan of country and I don't normally find myself listening to gospel, but today I found myself keeping an open ear on the interview that Tavis was doing with founding member Jimmy Carter (no relation to the former President).

These guys have been a group since 1939!

The album isn't set to be released until May 3rd, but for those who are interested in either of these genres of music, I can tell you that even someone who doesn't pay much attention to either can appreciate that this is a decent CD. It features performances by Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, Lee Ann Womack, Hank Williams, Jr., and others.

Here's the link in case anyone's interested in checking it out. It's just too bad there's no audio samples available for it yet.

You can hear Smiley's interview with Carter, along with small snippets of some of the tracks, here.

-Gabe

3 comments:

  1. I have siblings much younger than myself, and we don't get to go to the movies very often. A few days ago we went to see the movie "HOP" together. And they were in the movie. I thought it was funny because I may not listen to their music, but I know who they are :]

    ReplyDelete
  2. there is a good video clip about the making of this CD at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfRLPXQUnKA

    ReplyDelete
  3. I never read it before . But this probably would motivate people to read the whole book after this short description. BTW u can buy motivation letter -

    ReplyDelete