Culture
Ricky McKinnie of Blind Boys of Alabama: ‘It’s not about what you can’t do, it’s about what you do’
By: Emily Votaw
Posted on:
CINCINNATI, Ohio (WOUB) – On June 10, 1944, six teenage students from the Alabama Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind arrived at Birmingham’s WSGN radio station, ready to perform professionally for the first time as The Happy Land Jubilee Singers. This moment would later be recognized as pivotal, as it was those teenagers who would eventually become Blind Boys of Alabama, a Grammy award-winning group with a history that spans more than eight decades.
Over those decades, band members would change, but the essence of the group has remained the same. Motivated in equal parts by faith and a love of music, the band tours all over the country.
On Friday, Blind Boys of Alabama play the Taft Theatre (317 East 5th Street). Ahead of that performance, Ricky McKinnie, a member since 1989, spoke with WOUB Culture. Find a transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.
Emily Votaw: Blind Boys of Alabama just released a book about the band’s history, Spirit of the Century. What was it like to reflect on the group’s journey for that book?
Ricky McKinnie: I’ve been around the Blind Boys since I was about four years old, so I saw a lot of it happen firsthand. I think it was a wonderful thing for the Blind Boys and their legacy to be put in writing.
I’m curious: how do you hope future generations will remember Blind Boys of Alabama?
McKinnie: Well, I hope that future generations would remember the Blind Boys for showing people that a disability didn’t have to be a handicap. Because it’s not about what you can’t do that’s important. It’s about what you do. Blindness is not a handicap, it’s a limitation, and everybody’s got limitations.
“I hope that future generations would remember the Blind Boys for showing people that a disability didn’t have to be a handicap. Because it’s not about what you can’t do that’s important. It’s about what you do. Blindness is not a handicap, it’s a limitation, and everybody’s got limitations.” – Ricky McKinnie
You’ve been involved with the group for so long. What keeps you personally inspired to keep performing?
McKinnie: What keeps us inspired, keeps us going on, is that people still appreciate our music. Knowing that our music touches people. When somebody comes to the record table after a show and says that our music made a difference in their lives – that’s what keeps us going because we are glad that our music and our concerts do make a difference.
Blind Boys of Alabama have recorded your own interpretations of lots of songs by popular artists. How do you decide which popular songs can be brought into a gospel tradition?
McKinnie: Most times we have producers and they bring us songs and we listen to the lyrics of the song, and the lyrics are what make a song stand out. It’s not so much about the particular artists as it is about the lyrics of the songs and what they bring.
One last question: what role does faith play in your day-to-day life at this point in your life?
McKinnie: Well, in my life when it comes to spirituality, it’s what keeps me going because if I didn’t believe in God and I didn’t know that He could do anything, then it’d be hard for me to keep on going on. Because you have to know that all is well. There’s not a light beyond the tunnel. There’s a light in the tunnel.