Blind Boys of Alabama – Gospel Brunch – Sunday, June 23 – Rio Grande Park VIP Tent
Tickets include brunch, Bloody Mary & Mimosa bar and concert
BUY TICKETS HERE

Ten Things to Know About The Blind Boys of Alabama!

  1. The Blind Boys of Alabama began singing together over seven decades ago. Since then America has witnessed a World War, Vietnam, the moon landing and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
  2. The original members first sang together as kids at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind in the late 1930s.
  3. They have won six GRAMMY Awards (including 2024 Best Roots Gospel Album for “Echoes of the South”, a Lifetime Achievement GRAMMY, been inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and performed at the White House for three different presidents.
  4. They’ve performed with some of the world’s most prestigious stages, including with music icons like Stevie Wonder, Prince, and Lou Reed.
  5. The New York Times they “came to epitomize what is known as jubilee singing, a livelier breed of gospel music,” adding that “they made it zestier still by adding jazz and blues idioms and turning up the volume, creating a sound…like the rock ‘n’ roll that grew out of it.”
  6. In the early 1960s, the band sang at benefits for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and were a part of the soundtrack to the Civil Rights Movement.
  7. In the 1980s, they starred alongside Oscar winner Morgan Freeman in the Obie Award-winning Broadway musical “The Gospel at Colonus.”
  8. They are not just gospel singers borrowing from old traditions, the group helped to define those traditions in the 20th century and almost single-handedly created a new gospel sound for the 21st.
  9. In February 2024 PBS aired a concert-documentary “A Symphony Celebration: The Blind Boys of Alabama” featuring Blind Boys’ classic hits conducted with a full orchestra featuring members of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra plus a 300-person combined choir from Alabama State and Alabama A&M universities, Miles College, Tuskegee University and Talladega College, Birmingham Southern College, and the UAB Department of Music. See video here.
  10. They have been hailed as “gospel titans” by Rolling Stone Magazine.