Soul Stirrer© Carol Allen
Jun 14, 1999
Archie Brownlee was one of the greatest gospel lead singers of all time in gospel history. Archie Brownlee could sing sweetly, then suddenly make his voice soar into a piercing scream. The emotional heat from his singing caused many who listened to fall out, perhaps because his spiritual fire was too intense, even for him to contain. He died at the peak of his career on February 8, 1960 at the age of 35.
For his entire career, Archie Brownlee sang with only one group, the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi. The group began as a quartet of blind students at the Piney Woods School, not far from Jackson, Mississippi. Piney Woods was one of the pioneering efforts aimed at providing black education, started by Professor Laurence C. Jones at the beginning of the century. In the twenties, Piney Woods began a separate division for teaching blind students. In 1931, six year-old Archie Brownlee joined the school. Soon after, yound Lloyd Woodard, Joseph Ford and Lawrence Abrams joined him. Singing was an important part of the school curriculum as the school already had a strong quartet tradition. Jones following the example of other Black institutions of higher learning like Fisk, Hampton and Tuskegee, decided to put together a group of students to sing and tour to raise money for the school. The group sang around the school before they became the first blind group of Cotton Blossom Singers to tour for the school. They started singing on the campus in 1936 and later caught the attention of Alan Lomax during one of his field recordings for the Library of Congress when the group performed a religious sectionas the "Blind Boys" and three folk songs as "Abraham (sic), Woodard and Patterson" om March 9, 1937. The sound of these recordings offered nothing to suggest what the group would sound like ten years hence. By 1944 the group decided to go professional, singing pop material for primarily white audiences. They were also performing as as the Jackson Harmoneers, singing almost strictly religious material for black church audiences. Their repertoire and singing style was a mixture of sprituals and jubilee tunes similar to the Golden Gates. Around that time they got another lead singer to work with them, Melvin Henderson and moved the base of the operations to New Orleans. Here they became popular on local programs and began a daily radio program on WWL. They regularly shared programs with the biggest local quartet, the New Orleans Chosen Five also known as Soprocco Singers.
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