A true staple of American roots music, the Blind Boys of Alabama emerged in the middle part of the 20th century singing traditional Black gospel music in a segregated South on the brink of the Civil Rights movement. From their inception in the late 1930s when they were all boys, the group's members turned their handicap into their chief selling point, and in fact, all but one of the original members were blind. From their early days touring the chitlin' circuit to their first recording heyday in the '50s and '60s, the Blind Boys weathered not only a rapidly changing America bu...