Ricky McKinnie calls it the Blind Boys feel, that moment when the audience applauds mid-song.
That's a sign that he and his fellow Blind Boys of Alabama have touched hearts.
"What's from the heart reaches the heart," explained band leader McKinnie, who has been with Blind Boys of Alabama for 50 years. "If you come out to the (concert), you're going to see exactly what I mean."
When they take the stage at La Rosa on Tuesday, Feb. 10, the Blind Boys of Alabama will draw from their dozens of albums recorded over their nearly nine decades, including their 2024 Grammy-winning record "Echoes of the South."
"We're going to sing some songs that you know, but we're going to sing them our way, and you're going to love every minute of it because we love singing," McKinnie said. "And what's from the heart reaches the heart and we're going to sing straight to the heart."
The quartet sings in delicious four-part harmonies β McKinnie and JW Smith sing second tenor, Sterling Glass sings baritone, and Joey Williams adds vocals to his role as music director. They are backed by guitar, bass, drums and keyboards, but those harmonies are especially poignant when they sing a capella.Β
Those harmonies have been the band's signature from the beginning, when the band started in 1939 at the Talladega Institute for the Blind in Talladega, Alabama.
Originally, it was called the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, because it had five members and all were blind. Throughout the decades, members dropped out and new ones came and for the most part, they maintained five members, all of them blind.
But they started using the name Blind Boys in the 1980s after one longtime member retired and another regained his sight, McKinnie said. Everyone on the current roster is blind except Williams.Β
McKinnie could see until he was 23, when he went blind due to complications from glaucoma. The Atlanta native had been touring with a gospel band out of Texas and had just recorded their first hit single, "Jesus, You've Been Good to Me," he recalled.Β
"And I lost my sight that year," he said during a phone call last week.Β "But you know, one thing I found out, and this is my motto: I'm not blind, I just can't see, and that means I lost my sight, but not my direction."
McKinnie's faith is reflected in the band's devotion to gospel music. Early in its run, some tried to steer the Blind Boys to R&B and pop music, but "we stayed true to what we believe in," he said.
That could explain why Blind Boys' audiences can sometimes become so moved by the music that concerts feel like tent revivals.
"We don't come to preach, though, but we're gonna sing," McKinnie said, then laughed when he learned that he and the band will be performing Tuesday in a converted church β the former Benedictine Monastery chapel.
"That's cool," he said. "In the church, out the church, on the steps, in the park. However you see the Blind Boys of Alabama, we're gonna have a good time."
Tuesday's show begins at 7:30 p.m. at La Rosa, 800 N. Country Club Road. Tickets are $72.20-$104.93 through larosatucson.org.
Tuesday's concert comes less than a year after Blind Boys played a show with special guest Shemekia Copeland at Fox Tucson Theatre.
