Sunday, February 3, 2008

Sunday Morning Gospel—The Blind Boys of Mississippi

I recently found some treasure troves of old gospel video clips on YouTube. I'm a huge fan of Golden Era gospel - especially the quartets of the late ’30s through the mid-’60s - but had almost never seen footage of them performing. So these clips came as something of a revelation to me. I hope you'll enjoy them, too. If I can get in the habit, I'm going to post one each Sunday.

This first clip comes from the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi (not to be confused with the Five Blind Boys of Alabama). This particular clip comes from the mid-’60s and features Henry Johnson on lead. The Blind Boys original lead, Archie Brownlee, was one of gospel's great hard shouters (check out "Our Father," one of my very favorite performances, to see what I mean), but he died in February 1960. I think you'll like Johnson, though.

Enjoy - and if you know of more clips likes this, please let me know.

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