If memory serves I discovered gospel music when I was about 11. The first artist I heard was Mahalia Jackson (there could scarcely be a better introduction) and subsequently there were Marion Williams, The Blind Boys of Mississippi, The Blind Boys of Alabama and splendid oddities like the Reverend Nix and his toast-like/rap-like sermon Black Diamond Train To Hell.
I think at one point I had briefly wondered if all gospel groups were called The Blind Boys of somewhere-or-other and found the label a little condescending, being unaware whether it had been self-chosen or imposed on them.
I soon came to realise that many of my favourite artists in popular music, such as Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Little Richard, to name but a very few, owed much to gospel, and that continues to be the case with contemporary performers such as the superb Rhiannon Giddens. Even Prince (“The Artist Formerly Known As”) was “a big big fan” of the Alabamans and at a 2008 gig jammed with them for 10 minutes before fading self-effacingly into the night.
As well as being an informative narrative about the gospel scene (with some of the artists I mention above coming and going in the background) this book spotlights the struggles and challenges around not only racial segregation but also attitudes to disabilities. I was, perhaps naively, rather shocked to learn that there was not always any camaraderie between people with different disabilities: in the Alabama School for the Negro Deaf and Blind the deaf residents would raid the dormitories of the blind residents, whose only effective defence was to ensure the lights were off. There was abuse from some of the teachers too.
Even if you are not that interested in gospel music this is a compelling book because of its chronicling of the personal struggles of the various group members. Lauterbach has done an admirable job of drawing together the vivid reminiscences of the surviving members of the various editions of the group with the social and historic background of that group and of gospel music more generally, enriched by evocative photographs from the 1940s onwards.
***
Spirit Of The Century, by The Blind Boys Of Alabama with Preston Lauterbach. Hachette Books; 288 pp including appendix, acknowledgments and index plus 16 pages of photographs; hb £25; hb 978036828218; e-book 978036828232
