Just One of the BoysBy John Swenson
After 69 years in the business of singing gospel, Jimmy Carter still had something new to learn about his music when the Blind Boys of Alabama came to New Orleans to make a record last year. “I was surprised because we’d never done it before, recording with New Orleans musicians,” says Carter, the last remaining original member of the groundbreaking gospel group the Five Blind Boys of Alabama. “But it sounded really good together, the gospel and the New Orleans music.” The Blind Boys of Alabama have been bringing gospel to secular audiences for much of their career, but even though they’ve sung material written by popular musicians such as Tom Waits and Stevie Wonder in recent years, the recordings retained gospel style arrangements. Down in New Orleans is remarkable in that, like a reversible coat of many colors, it works equally well as a gospel album backed by New Orleans musicians and a New Orleans recording with great vocalists. This genre-bending achievement is obviously due in large part to the talents of the Blind Boys as vocalists and the New Orleans instrumentalists who accompanied them—the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, the Hot 8 Brass Band, pianists Allen Toussaint and David Torkanowsky, drummer Shannon Powell and bassist Roland Guerin. But there’s something else at work here as well. Down in New Orleans demonstrates the deep influence that gospel has on New Orleans music. Gospel is inextricably tied to the roots of everything New Orleans, from trad jazz to the latest street parade. The record opens with a funk bass line and a jumping New Orleans rhythm before Carter and company join in to sing “Free At Last,” a classic piece of gospel whose rhythmic underpinnings are dislodged by the backing musicians. When Torkanowsky plays a dancing piano solo, the record is pure New Orleans R&B. As soon as the Blind Boys join in for the next verse, it’s back to hard gospel. As the song moves into its final verse, the voices reach an ecstatic call and response peak climaxed by eight bars of Carter’s astonishing jagged edge scream—a scream solo, a moment of pure gospel R&B synthesis. Carter’s voice reaches a place in this moment that some of the biggest stars of soul and R&B have searched for in vain. “That’s where James Brown got it from. James Brown said he got it from listening to the Blind Boys,” notes Chris Goldsmith, who produced Down in New Orleans and has worked on all the Blind Boys releases since Spirit of the Century, the 2001 recording that broke them through to a pop audience. “Little Richard said it, too, listening to those Specialty gospel records back in the ’50s.” Even though Goldsmith helped put the pieces together on Down in New Orleans, he was still overwhelmed by the power of the outcome. “It went as well as it possibly could have gone,” he says. “We did exactly what we were trying to do. We wanted to go in New Orleans and made a record that incorporated the sound of the Neville Brothers and Dr. John as well as the Mahalia Jackson influence and of course the Blind Boys. It all came together. It could not have gone any better. The Blind Boys and Preservation Hall are a perfect fit. There’re not many singers you could put with Preservation Hall who would be as complementary.” The whole session was finished in three whirlwind days of recording at Piety Street Studio in the Bywater. “We love Piety Street,” says Goldsmith. “We’d been there before. We did the Aaron Neville ‘Joy to the World’ track on the Blind Boys Christmas record. We tracked that live at Piety Street in ’04 and it was a great experience. This was a wonderful time. Shannon Powell’s wife catered the session for us and brought in gumbo and jambalaya, homemade cornbread, that really helped set the tone. The whole vibe was wonderful. There are so many memories, the food, the Hot 8 Band hanging around shooting hoops in the backyard waiting for their call, the amazing moment when Toussaint came in.” Toussaint played on two tracks, both central to the recording’s success. “Down by the Riverside,” which also features Preservation Hall, opens with a graceful piano figure. Though this song is a regular feature of Blind Boys shows, Toussaint gives it a touch of Crescent City swing. His piano manages to subtly drape the familiar chorus with a new feel. His piano solo is a masterpiece of thematic translucence, a nuanced, understated translation of the melody. “It just happened,” Goldsmith marvels. “He just walked in and did it. David Torkanowsky, who was on the session, stuck around the watch Allen, and he said, ‘It will be very interesting to see how he approaches this; it’s a song we’ve heard so many times.’ Allen came in and took a whole different approach from what we might have expected. David said, ‘Wow, that wasn’t at all what I was thinking he would do. It was just perfect.’ It was a very exciting moment; he took the song and made it into something that hadn’t been done in that way before. It was all live, one take. We did a safety take but he nailed it first time through.” But the high point of the record is the duet between Carter and Toussaint, “If I Can Help Somebody.” “I can’t help but crying listening to that even a month later,” says Goldsmith. “Jimmy was supposed to be there already. The rest of the band was there but Jimmy missed the entire first day because his brother had died. He came off the plane right to the studio, didn’t even go to the hotel room. Toussaint had been there for 15 minutes. They were introduced to each other and there was this most amazing, gracious exchange, then they just went on and did it.” “If I can help somebody in the world, my living will not be in vain,” sings Carter, his ragged voice courageously forcing itself into the high register even as it implodes in its throaty rasp. The emotion is stark and inspirational, and you can feel Toussaint urging Carter on to the full power of his performance. “We had a good camaraderie,” Carter says of Toussaint. “When we played together that was my first time meeting him. He was amazing. It’s like he knew what I wanted to do without me telling him anything, and he followed everything I sang perfectly. He played along with me. He was right on top of it.” Gospel music is part of the genetic code of New Orleans music, so it’s no surprise that the Hot 8 Brass Band bonded with the Blind Boys musically and personally. The brass band’s street enthusiasm also fit perfectly with the high energy vocals of the Blind Boys on “Make a Better World” and “I’ll Fly Away,” and they spent a day hanging out with Hot 8 in the hood, joining in on a second line. “I got along real well with them,” said Carter of the Hot 8. “They were great. We really relate to young people. Playing with Hot 8 is a good opportunity for us to get through to young people; it was like when we recorded with Ben Harper.” Hot 8 sousaphone player Bennie Peete had been eagerly looking forward to this session. “I knew it would work out because I grew up in church singing all those gospel songs,” he says. “Some of those gospel songs are already in our repertoire. We didn’t have any arrangements; we just came up with the parts as we recorded. Everything was done on the spot. They were professional and we knew what we had to do. It felt like they were a New Orleans band, like one of the local groups, because they came in and just did it first time through. They did a good job of playing the New Orleans music.” Subscribe to offBeat and receive a FREE JazzFest CD! |
