Blind Faith

Sam Cooke and Little Richard were just two members of a generation of soul singers who strayed from their gospel-music roots back in the 1950s. Giving in to the pull of secular music, both men rode to early rock ‘n’ roll stardom.

Not Clarence Fountain, a contemporary of Cooke and Little Richard who grew up listening to spirituals on the radio and singing in his church glee club and at revival meetings. The big, burly, deep-voiced front man of the Blind Boys of Alabama found inspiration enough for a lifetime in gospel music.

“Our purpose comes from up above,” Fountain said by phone on a tour stop outside Chicago. “It’s one of our destinies in life to make people feel something they haven’t felt before--the spirit of God. It’s been a long road, but you can’t rush him. God don’t move when you want him to move, but he does come around eventually.”

Fountain started singing with Heavenly Gospel Singers and, later, the Golden Gate Quartet. He was a skinny teenager at the Talladega Institute for the Deaf and Blind when he formed the Happy Land Singers. During a performance in front of about 12,000 soldiers in 1945, the young group was so well-received that the boys dropped out of school and formed the Happy Land Jubilee Singers. That group was signed to Specialty Records and recorded its first album in 1948, “I Can See Everyone’s Mother but Mine.”

By 1950, they became the Five Blind Boys of Alabama because of a good-natured rivalry with the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi (all of whom are now deceased).

“We changed our name when they came along and were doing very well,” said Fountain, who lost his sight after contracting pink eye at age 3. “We were similar sounding, only one was from Alabama and the other [was] from Mississippi.”

Billed as “The Battle of the Blind Boys,” hard-fought gospel competitions between the talented groups would pit Fountain against counterpart Archie Brownlee.

“It got pretty competitive, but the two groups would sing together at the end of the show and shake hands,” said the 66-year-old Detroit resident. “Boy . . . old Archie, he surely put me to the test.”

In addition to Fountain, the group--which performs Saturday at the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library--includes two other original members, George Scott and Jimmy Carter, plus sighted, singing instrumentalists Joey Williams (guitar), Eric McKinnie (drums) and Caleb Butler (bass).

Despite having recorded more than 25 small-label albums since its debut almost 50 years ago, the Blind Boys of Alabama finally reached beyond a core black audience in 1988 via a critically praised New York stage production with Fountain in the lead of Sophocles’ Oedipus tale.

That play, “The Gospel at Colonus”--a classic Greek tragedy in the Pentecostal style--ran 15 weeks on Broadway and helped popularize the group enough to play jazz and blues festivals worldwide.

The play’s success also paved the way to its first major-label recording, 1992’s Grammy-nominated “Deep River.” The group is slated to reprise the show in March at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, in a production with actor Roscoe Lee Brown.

Featuring Fountain’s gravelly voice and the Boys’ silky harmonies, the songs on the breakthrough “Deep River” ranged from the riveting hymnal “Down on Bended Knees” and opening and closing a cappella versions of the title track to a funky “Don’t Play With God” and a heartfelt cover of Bob Dylan’s “I Believe in You.”

In trying to further widen its audience, the touring group frequently plays such other ungospel-like tunes as the Irish standard “Danny Boy,” Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart” or Pete Seeger’s “If I Had a Hammer.” Seeger’s song showed up on the group’s latest album, “I Brought Him With Me,” which was recorded live last year at the House of Blues (and released on HOB’s own fledgling roots-music label).

Don’t think any of that means the group is getting ideas about career changes.

“Naaah, we’re cut out to do just what we’re doing,” Fountain said.

“A long time ago, we came up with the idea that we could do this God’s way. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that if you’re gonna do something, stick with it. Do it well, and if you’re for real, faith will bring you through somewhere down the line.”

* The Blind Boys of Alabama perform Saturday at the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library, 31495 El Camino Real. 7 and 9 p.m. $3-$6. (714) 248-7469.