The Original Five Blind Boys of Alabama - Oh Lord- Stand By Me/ Marching Up to Zion (Specialty)

Picturing suits and sunglasses coupled with calmative bible salesmen demeanors, the portrait covers of the two Specialty albums collected on this two-fer suggest starchy gospel for the suburban set. The sort of thing your pious grandparents might play as a soundtrack for a post-church Sunday brunch. The actual performances couldn't be farther from that false impression. The Five Blind Boys of Alabama may have been a marketing gimmick in moniker, but their music was brimming with bonafide Holy Ghost Power. The twenty-four spirituals here feature the fivesome in a variety of reverential moods from penitential to ecstatic. Accompaniment is suitably sparse. On the opening cuts a tremolo-treated guitar rings out shimmering chords behind their impassioned shouts. Elsewhere it's piano and drums or foot stomps and handclaps providing rhythms for the energized exhortations. Clarence Fountain and the Reverend Samuel K. Lewis share lead vocals and the lion's share of arranging chores, backed by the layered harmonies of tenor George Scott, baritone Olice Thomas and bass Johnny Fields. Nearly every track is a winner, but it's rapturous ones that I return to most. The Five's signature song "Oh Lord- Stand By Me" kicks the set off in fine fettle, their voices exuding a gruffness and candor that makes the faith-based plea of the lyrics palpable to both believers and agnostics alike. A favorite of bluesman Fred McDowell's "You Got to Move", demands that the listener do just that and the braiding voices bring the on-high directive home through another raw and regal performance. Other pearls include the Civil Rights anthem "I'll Fly Away" and the harrowing "Alone and Motherless", both imbedded with resilient kernels of hope at their cores. Gospel is always a hard sell amongst my friends, but I'm hard pressed to think of another genre where emotions are so naked and truly stated. These sightless songsters deliver some of the best.