Most of our teachers were white, and the songs that they taught us were white, so when we first started out singing, it was really more of a glee club,

Ben Harper came to us with some gospel songs in mind, and that worked. I thought that was a good idea to cut it with a rock 'n' roll guy because that shows he knew something about the Lord. We liked him and he liked us, and that made it better.

We were blind, so everybody was dark to us,

We were on the same bill as this other blind group, Jackson Harmony, from Mississippi, ... Well, the promoter decided to bill it as 'the blind boys of Alabama against the blind boys of Mississippi.' The crowd loved us, the name stuck, and things took off for us.

So we started singing, and eventually we began to think we had something special. I thought we could sing as well as The Golden Gate Quartet, and if they could go out in the world and do it, well, so could we.

For better or worse, I've always been ready to change,