Blind Boys in D.C.: 'Study war no more'

by Mark Silva

The last time the Blnd Boys of Alabama played Washngton, they didn't have five Grammy Awards.

"Now we got 'em,'' one happily proclaimed last night on stage at the ornate old Warner Theater in downtown D.C., where the Blind Boys played to a full house with the backup of The Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The fusion of two powerhouses of the Old South put some serious heat in the house on a sub-freezing evening in the nation's capital.

They will be back, too. The Blind Boys are bound for the White House on Feb. 10, they say. These aging gospel phenomena trace their roots to 1939 and have played the White House before, and we last saw them at the Kennedy Center in September of 2006.

Their Amazing Grace performed to the tune of House of the Rising Sun is a classic (with apologies for the rough-cut from the two-year-old show featured above) and combined with the Preservation Hall band for a few tunes in their traveling show together everything they produce is a classic reminder of the power of the real American music.

Down by the Potomac, and at the White House during these times, too, the Blind Boys' inspirational words are sorely needed: "Ain't gonna study war no more, ain't gonna study war no more.''