Formed in 1937 at Alabama’s Talladega Institute for the Deaf and Blind, the traditional Black gospel quartet grew out of the earlier Happyland Jubilee Singers. During the 1940s the ensemble became known as the Blind Boys and cut sides for Specialty, Vee-Jay, Savoy, Elektra, and additional imprints. Their initial chart success arrived in 1949 with the release of “I Can See Everybody’s Mother But Mine.” The roster active throughout the 1990s comprised George Scott, Joe Watson, Jimmy Carter, Sam and Bobby Butler, Curtis Foster, Johnny Fields, and Clarence Fountain. A Broadway staging of Gospel at Colonus featured the singers, yet wider recognition arrived in the late 1990s and early 2000s through a run of albums issued on Peter Gabriel’s Real World imprint, the first of which was the collaboration-heavy Spirit of the Century. The group also contributed to Gabriel’s 2002 album Up and shared billing with Ben Harper on the 2004 release There Will Be a Light. Following Scott’s death in 2005 and Fountain’s subsequent withdrawal from performing, Jimmy Carter assumed leadership. In 2011 the ensemble returned to country-gospel traditions on Take the High Road, recorded under producer Jamey Johnson with guest appearances by Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Jr., and Vince Gill.
