February 22, 2008
They got their start at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind in 1939. Sixty-nine years later, the band remains a gospel music institution. For their latest album, Down in New Orleans, the Blind Boys went to Louisiana for a new take on some classic spirituals. The group performs live in Studio 360 and Kurt chats with one of the group’s original members, who is named Jimmy Carter.
OK, the words were Amazing Grace, but the tune was House of the Rising Sun! Friends of mine have done this as a joke for years...I wonder if Jimmy Carter realized he was wrong-tuning it.
It's even funnier the other way around, btw.
You can also sing Clementine to the choral section of Beethoven's Ninth, and both of those also work with From the Halls of Montezuma (whatever that tune is really called). But somehow I don't think Jimmy Carter intended the joke.
Towards the end of the interview Jimmy talks about updating the music. And then, fittingly, the Blind Boys go out with what amounts to a mashup: Their version of Amazing Grace (also on the current cd) uses the same melody the Animals used many moons ago for their hit version of "House of the Rising Sun".
Hmm. Actually the title of the album makes me think it probably IS deliberate, and the joke is Jimmy Carter's, rather than someone else's ON him.
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