The Blind Boys of Alabama will be ed by Shemekia Copeland when they take to the Poway Center for the Performing Arts stage on Sunday, Feb. 23.
The 4 p.m. concert through Poway OnStage will feature a mix of gospel, blues and R&B music.
“The music is authentic, from the heart,” said Ricky McKinnie, a member of the Blind Boys since 1989 and its leader since 2023. “It reaches your heart because we sing from the soul.”
It is for that reason that McKinnie said the Blind Boys of Alabama have been performing continuously since the group’s founding in 1939 in Talladega, Alabama. Its name reflects the fact that throughout the group’s history, the majority of were vision impaired.
In addition to McKinnie, the current are Sterling Glass, JW Smith and Joey Williams.
“If you are feeling bad, expect to leave (the concert) feeling glad,” McKinnie said of the concert. “There will be old songs, new songs and some acapella.”
Some of the music will include favorites such as “Amazing Grace” and “Wade in the Water,” he said.
The group will also do several songs from its most recent album, “Echoes of the South,” which was released in August 2023. The 11 songs are “a portrait of perseverance from a group well-versed in overcoming incredible odds — from singing for pocket change in the Jim Crow South to performing for three different American presidents, soundtracking the Civil Rights movement and helping define modern gospel music as we know it,” according to the group’s bio.
The album was nominated for three Grammy Awards and won Best Roots Gospel Album, bringing the group’s total Grammy wins to six over its seven-decade history.
The Blind Boys of Alabama have been named living legends of gospel music, celebrated by The National Endowment for the Arts and The Recording Academy/Grammys with Lifetime Achievement Awards. The most recent came from the Americana Music Association, which presented them with a Lifetime Achievement Award last year.
The group has worked with numerous songwriters, including Eric Clapton, Prince and Tom Waits. Among those who have recorded with the Blind Boys of Alabama are Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, Aaron Neville, Susan Tedeschi, Ben Harper, Patty Griffin and Taj Mahal.
ing them in Poway will be multi-Grammy Award nominee Shemekia Copeland, who will bring the blues sound to the concert, McKinnie said.
She has been singing since childhood, ing her Texas blues guitarist and singer father, Johnny Copeland, on stage at New York’s Cotton Club as an 8-year-old. Her first album, Turn The Heat Up, was released in 1998 at age 18 and since then has been known for singing the blues along with R&B.
Copeland will open the concert by performing several songs alone, then will sing one with the Blind Boys of Alabama before they continue the 75-minute concert with no intermission, McKinnie said.
“There is audience participation too,” he said of their concerts. “It will be a wonderful time, a great time.”
McKinnie started with the group as a drummer in 1989 and later became one of its singers. In 1997 he became its manager and group leader in 2023 following the retirement of longtime group member and leader Jimmy Carter.
But his connection actually goes back much farther. In the late 1950s, as a 5-year-old, he first met the group’s , then crossed paths with them several times over the years through his mother, Sarah s McKinnie Shivers.
“My mother … traveled on the road singing gospel music,” said McKinnie, who lost his sight at age 23 from glaucoma.
As for what the group’s music means to him, McKinnie said “faith. … It makes me feel good. When going through something, it brings out the best in me.”
Tickets to the 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 23 concert are $74-$94 for adults; $64-$81 for seniors (65-plus), active military and students (ages 13-21); and $42-$52 for youths (12 and under). Buy at powayonstage.org or at the box office by calling 858-748-0505 or going to the Poway Center for the Performing Arts, 15498 Espola Road.
