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By WAYNE TRUJILLO
Charles used his talent to celebrate the carnal while the Blind Boys celebrated the celestial. Charles enjoyed his greatest success at an early age when he transformed American popular music by virtually inventing soul music and cutting classics that prepared the world for Elvis and the Beatles. The Blind Boys endured the music industry's denial for decades before earning their current vogue. Today, the Blind Boys are a living testament to the gospel belief that the Lord will not only make a way, but His chosen will be the last ones standing. Clarence Fountain, one of the original members of the Blind Boys, isn't gloating about outlasting Charles. Instead, Fountain bemoans Charles' departure as one of life's great missed opportunities. "Ray Charles would've been the man that I'd really want to deal with when he was in the right frame of mind and doing beautiful music. But I wouldn't want to sing the blues behind him, but hey, I wouldn't mind singing a little gospel with him," Fountain said in a phone interview from New York City where the group reprised their hit performance in The Gospel At Colunus at the Apollo Theater. "But (I) didn't get a chance to do that. So, that's passed and gone. We'll have to look to somebody else. Anybody who wants to sit down with the Blind Boys and sing gospel, we're ready." Fountain prefers to gaze into the future. The Blind Boys are celebrating their second successive #1 recording on Billboard magazine's Gospel Chart and a third consecutive Grammy trophy last spring for Best Tradition Gospel Soul Performance. Fountain believes that the Blind Boys have caught a glimpse of heaven. In a career that premiered before Gone With The Wind , the Blind Boys have seen some mighty tough times. The two decades following gospel's glory years of the fifties didn't seem too bright when the Blind Boys disbanded and ventured into solo projects. The original members, Fountain, Jimmy Carter, and George Scott, groped for direction as their careers threatened to wander into oblivion. The Blind Boys emerged from obscurity in the early eighties to headline the Broadway production of Gospel at Colunus and they haven't cast a backward glance. The group's collaboration with Ben Harper on their new release, There Will Be A Light, expands their already considerable appeal to America's pop culture. The grooves and beats more common to alternative radio than the chitlin' circuit, but there's fealty to tradition on several cuts. Whether retreating to perennial chestnuts like "If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again" or the bouncy stomp of the sanctified church on his own composition, "Church House On Time," Harper has paid service not only to the Blind Boys' in particular, but to gospel music in general. The payoff for the Blind Boys is an expanded audience comprised of people who are largely unfamiliar with Black gospel music. The Blind Boys' audiences feature a demographic snapshot of the nation's population. Fountain and the group belt the same praises to the Lord that they shouted in clapboard churches and inner-city auditoriums on the Gospel Highway when Eisenhower occupied the Oval Office. But the congregation boasts a widely different cast. Preppy attire replaces yesteryear's flowered hats and Sunday suits. Frat boys and sorority sisters compete with computer geeks in theatrical displays of worship. Even if the audience's sanctified shuffle is more preppy than puritan, the Blind Boys are happy that their message is being sung long after time has silenced the mighty voices of their peers on the Gospel Highway. "I have nothing against riding high," declared Fountain. "That's what you're supposed to do when you're at the top of the charts. We're glad and we're grateful." Besides, Fountain stressed that the emotion remains constant regardless of the audience. "They change, but God don't change. If you've got the same spirit you had back at that date-- I say that's a good thing." Most of the gospel giants of the fifties are retired, deceased, or ignored, but the Blind Boys contemporary stardom has surpassed every gospel artist in history, with the possible exceptions of Mahalia Jackson and the Soul Stirrers. Fountain isn't quibbling over God's timing or questioning why He tabled the Blind Boys stardom for decades. "Everything has a beginning. Way back from the beginning we had to go on and see what the end is gonna bring," explained Fountain. "So far there's goodness, happiness, and peace and we had really no problems with it. I think the Lord's satisfied that I'm satisfied, so hey, let it roll on 'til the end comes. And then when that comes it will be just like everything else... come and gone." Fountain's incessant praises to God can seem redundant, but the gospel life hammered home to the artists that faith is the holy grail of survival. Fans steeped in Black gospel history realize that Fountain's repeated salutations to God for the Blind Boys' latter-day success is the same mantras that buffered countless gospel artists through trials and tribulations that rival those reported in the Book of Job. Several of the seven Blind Boys became sightless during childhood, but the visionary of the group has been blind since birth. Fountain once said that he never doubted that the group would realize good fortune. During the dark years such predictions would appear sagacious, but to Fountain it all boils down to blind faith. Fountain sums up the group's blessings with a simple statement. "He knows how to do it, and can nobody else do it like God. And I'm glad because if it was man, we've been gone a long time ago." Indeed, the group's endurance (not to mention popularity) is miraculous. While most of his peers have crossed over the River Jordan, the Blind Boys are also crossing over— to the pop charts. But Fountain takes his faith more seriously than his stardom. Indeed, he is self-effacing, often tempering serious God talk with a humorous aside. Several years ago, following a Boulder, Colorado performance, I mentioned a decades-old rivalry between Fountain and the lead of the Blind Boys of Mississippi, Archie Brownlee. Fountain's response was self-effacing. “Archie could sing, I can't,” he responded. Beneath Fountain's modesty is a hard-earned confidence steeped in countless clapboard churches and miles of rural trails comprising the gospel highway. The mythic rivalry with his Mississippi counterpart was laid to rest forty-plus years ago when they buried Brownlee in 1960 at the age of 35. Decades after battling Brownlee in the first flush of stardom, Fountain is still a soldier in the army of the Lord. And the gospel warrior is winning the battle. Christianity's presence is felt across America from the voting booth to the pop charts. But the Blind Boys are invading regions outside of Red State borders and the Bible belt where fire and brimstone draws its largest audience. The haute couture cliques that shade the electoral map a deep blue are getting saved when the Blind Boys are doing the preaching. Fountain offered an insight on the secret of the group's bipartisan and biracial allure. "When the Blind Boys come to town, you just have to come out and see them and feel good," Fountain advised. "We can have a good time. And that's our aim is to make you feel good... in a way you've never felt before." Dan Rather visited with the Blind Boys hours before their 2003 Boulder performance, which later aired on 60 Minutes II. That holiday appearance, celebrating their Christmas release, filled the house with a following light years removed from the gospel caravans that presented Fountain on programs beside Sam Cooke, Dorothy Love Coates, and the Dixie Hummingbirds. Still, like Fountain observed, the same energy remains constant. Gospel's glory days found artists limited to a certain venue and audience, but Fountain is content to spread God's message wherever people will listen. "Hey I'm not going to worry about it. I'm satisfied and I'm happy. And I hope it makes somebody else feel as good as it makes me feel." OTHER VALUABLE RESOURCES TO LOOK INTO:
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