The Five Blind Boys of Alabama featuring Clarence Fountain; “Deep River” Elektra Nonesuch American Explorer .

This 50-year-old group’s major-label debut couldn’t be better timed: People are raving about the authentic gospel singing in Steve Martin’s “Leap of Faith.” Anyone hungry for more of that kind of thing would do well to give the Five Blind Boys a listen. They frame this 13-song collection with a cappella treatments (known in black gospel music as “jubilee singing”) of the title tune; in between, they move from traditional to original material, including leader Clarence Fountain’s funky “Don’t Play With God,” which castigates those whose faith is all talk and no action, to such non-traditional material as Bob Dylan’s breathtaking confession of faith, “I Believe in You.”

The album is paced like a great gospel performance, from slow and medium tempo devotionals up through such roof-rattling rave-ups as “Every Time I Feel the Spirit,” and then winding down in a state of grace with “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” and the reprise of “Deep River.”

The last time I saw the Blind Boys, it wasn’t under a revival tent or in a church but in a smoky, sweaty bar in the center of New Orleans’ nightclub district. As group member George Scott puts it in the liner notes: “People in the church are supposed to know already. We want to reach the ones who don’t know, and that is why we go everywhere.” And that’s what they do here, musically and spiritually.