Pop Music : Lived-In Gospel From the Five Blind Boys

To the uninitiated, the prospect of the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, a gospel group now in its 45th year, singing “Amazing Grace” may seem unlikely, for certain obvious lyrical reasons. But the group’s playful spirit allows for having some fun doing variations on the standard lines.

Blind Boy Jimmy Carter made his way down the aisle at McCabe’s on Saturday, attendant close behind. “Look like I can . . . ,” he offered, impishly lifting his shades for a split-second, “ . . . see-ee-ee!”

In modern black gospel circles, vocal ranges as wide and flawless as Whitney Houston’s or Freddy Jackson’s are virtually a dime a dozen, but there’s still nothing like the melisma of a lived-in voice, which is what the Five Blind Boys (actually, on this night, four veteran singers plus four younger backing musicians) have to offer an increasingly youth-oriented and “professional” genre.

There was a rough edge to the quartet’s harmonies, but also some sustained individual notes that would make church singers four decades their junior green with envy or blue with breath-control problems. The 70-minute late show at McCabe’s included songs from a new album as well as numbers like “If I Had a Hammer” and even “Danny Boy,” which were brought well out of the realm of cliche and transformed into light, semi-raw R&B; splendor.