The Blind Boys of Alabama are hoping to stick around "a little while longer" to continue bridging their classic gospel sound with the contemporary.

The Blind Boys of Alabama are as much a living legend in gospel music as any. Already in its seventh decade of recording and performing, the quartet keeps going at it as if it were still 1944, the year the group first decided to step out in faith and leave the comfort zone of their school for the blind in Talladega, Florida to become touring singers. At first, they sang for predominantly black audiences in the South, but since the turn of the millennium, the Boys have experienced a renaissance of sorts, scoring a Grammy for every album they've released since 2001's Spirit of the Century, and amassing scores of new fan young and old. In this wide-ranging conversation, founding member Jimmy Carter talks about the group's new album, Down in New Orleans (Time-Life), as well as what drives them to keep going after all these years.

You guys are living legends. Yet somehow, it seems gospel music itself isn't very good at paying homage to its own history—very few people are keeping tabs on preserving this legacy. What gives?

Jimmy Carter: I agree with that. I hope we can stay out here just a little bit longer so we can try to fix that. Gospel, it'll never die; it'll always be. But as you said, there's not enough tribute paid to it—"it seems" that way 'cause it's true! We're going to stay out here as long as God lets us stay and we're going to try to let the people know about it and we're going to do our best to try to fix that.

When your previous album, Atom Bomb, came out in 2005, the Blind Boys were grieving the loss of your dear friend George Scott. What was it like for you to mourn one of the founding members of the group?

Carter: Well, it was a very devastating loss. George was one of the original members and there would never be another George. But life goes on and he wouldn't want us to stop. So we got a new fellow to replace him, but he [could never] replace him. It was tough to lose George—very, very tough.

In light of George's death, do you ever catch yourself thinking about your own mortality?

Carter: Well, you know, sometimes it crosses my mind, but I don't dwell on that. I think God still has a little more work for me to do before he calls me in. When he calls me, I'll go, but I think he has just a few more little things he wants me to do.

Such as?

Carter: To still tell the people about him and his Son. I think he has a few more places that he wants to send us to before he calls us in.

Working with a replacement, how did your deep-set dynamic change? Was it hard to adjust?

Carter: Well, no, he has to adjust to us; we don't adjust to him! He comes in and we audition him and check out his credentials and if his credentials are good, we go on with him.

In the last decade, your group has been renowned for singing traditional gospel music and spirituals to the sounds of rock 'n' roll and classic R&B. What is it that set you apart?

Carter: Well, we have to be the revival and we're trying to relate to the young people, too. That's one reason why we collaborate with people like Ben Harper, Aaron Neville, and Peter Gabriel … they relate to younger folks. And now when we have our concerts, we find that we have more young people attending than there has been before.

Do you get a lot of opportunities to testify about Christ?

Carter: We have many, many people who come and say that we've touched their lives. They felt good. Some of them have come depressed, sad. But when we got singing to them or talking to them, they found joy—they did feel something that they had never felt before.

That shift in approach began in 2001 with Spirit of the Century. How does it feel to get that kind of attention now, in your seventh decade as recording artists?

Carter: Well, it makes us feel good because, as I said, we're trying to get young people involved with our music. We're trying to bridge the generation gap, and I think we've done that. Some of them had never even heard of the Blind Boys.

Your newest album, Down in New Orleans, was recorded on location. Why the decision to head to the Crescent City?

Carter: For two reasons. One, we've never been to New Orleans [to practice] with that particular kind of sound. The second reason, we were trying to bring hope back to the people of New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. So we told them, "We can't help you rebuild New Orleans back—we can't use a hammer and a nail—but we can bring hope with our music. We can bring hope and let you know that everything's not lost. There's always hope when there's life."

The Blind Boys (in red) performing with some of the classic musicians from New Orleans.

The music is almost anachronistic. Why did you decide to go back to that classic Dixieland sound?

Carter: That was the producer's idea. That was his goal—to kind of go back and get the more solemn-and-upbeat sound with the horns and the different instruments. We tried to go back and get a little more classic.

A number of artists in recent memory have visited New Orleans to record music there as a tribute to the city. Do you feel people might think you're jumping on a bandwagon of sorts?

Carter: I don't think so. I think we have our own place in that respect.

What kind of reception did you get once you actually went there?

Carter: I think we were received very, very well. We went down there, got together with the musicians, created the record, and everybody seems to like it. So I hope it'll bring Grammy No. 5 to the Blind Boys—we've got four, you know.

How were people's spirits?

Carter: Those that I met, they know they have a long way to go. They seem to [want] to work and build and work and build. They have a long way to go. New Orleans was in very bad shape, and it still is. Some lost everything they had. It'll never be the same as it was. But I think in time it will be another great city.

Despite the suffering of the aftermath, do people there still have sensitivity toward the things of God?

Carter: They do, they do. Those I met knew God. He's their hope, and they trust him for hope. They are determined to bring New Orleans back to being a great city. Some still question him, but you have to understand that he knows their heart. When disasters strike like that, sometimes you have to question him. But God knows, and he always brings things home.

Is there something about your time in New Orleans that struck you as particularly interesting?

Carter: One thing I remember, they've built a community that is called Musician's Village, where they have all these houses that no one lives in but musicians. There's a bunch of them. And that was something that I won't forget.

What was it like with working with some of these New Orleans legends, like Allen Toussaint?

Carter: It was great. I had never met him, and to think that he would do something with us was an honor. He was a really nice gentleman, too.

You've said it was tough to adjust to this style of music because you've never recorded anything like it before. What was the hardest part of getting this recorded?

Carter: It wasn't really that hard. I guess it became more a challenge because we'd never done it before. To hear that kind of sound, it really made us want to do it, so we really had some adjusting to do.

Yet when someone listens to the album, it sounds as if you've been doing this style of music all your life.

Carter: When you're a professional, you just know how things ought to go and you just do that!

You chose to cover two classic Mahalia Jackson songs on New Orleans. Tell me about that.

Carter: I'm embarrassed to say this because I didn't know Mahalia Jackson came from New Orleans (laughs). And to pay that tribute to her was a great thing. We enjoyed doing that.

What are your hopes for Down in New Orleans? What do you pray it accomplishes?

Carter: Well, not only this album, but all of the other albums that we've done, we're hoping to sing out to him. We're Christian people and we like to tell people about the Lord. We like to tell people about Jesus Christ, about God. Our aim when we sing on our albums or when we go out on stage is to make people feel something that they've never felt before. We want to bring hope to the hopeless. We want to bring joy to the people. We're trying to touch people's lives and plant a seed. We throw the seeds out hoping that they'll fall on good ground and bloom.

How can one best pray for the Blind Boys of Alabama?

Carter: If you just tell the Lord to keep our health good. As long as we've got good health, we're going to live long. So if they're going to pray for us, pray to keep us in good health.

What is God teaching you lately?

Carter: He's teaching me to be patient. I guess I get impatient sometimes. But God does things in his own time, because [it took] 40 years or more to get to where we are now. That was all in his time to do it. So he's still granting me patience. That's what he's teaching me now.

The Blind Boys of Alabama are living legends. What do you say to those that are just coming up in gospel music? What's your advice?

Carter: The only advice I give is you have to be dedicated. If you're not dedicated, there's no point in going into it. It was rough when we started and it's even rougher now with so much gospel music out there. You have to be dedicated. If you're not, get your nine-to-five [job]. Most of the time, you have to earn what you get, because it doesn't come in a silver platter. You have to work for it.

For more about The Blind Boys of Alabama, visit our site's artist page, where you'll also find a review of their latest album, Down in New Orleans. Visit Christianbook.com to listen to song clips and buy their music.

Copyright © Andree Farias subject to licensing agreement with Christian Music Today. Click for reprint information.

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