The gospel troupe’s latest album is named after the radio show that first booked them, way back in 1944. The Boys, from the Alabama Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind, modelled themselves on black groups such as the Golden Gate Quartet, but under the south’s Jim Crow laws they were bizarrely allowed to sing only white gospel. From this modest beginning the group’s ever changing roster has come to embody gospel and its spirit of perseverance and sanctity for a global audience, helped by star-laden collaborations and inspired cover versions (Waits, Dylan, Stones). Here the focus is on tradition; the whooping, frenetic Send It On Down and Nothing But Love, the testimony of You Can’t Hurry God. The voices – rich and grained, with the occasional surprising falsetto – are backed by a minimalist four-piece that adds a 1940s swing to Work Until My Days Are Done. There’s a moving, ruminative cover of Friendship, made famous by Pops Staples, while Curtis Mayfield’s Keep On Pushin’, a piece of c ivil rights optimism, is here slowed to stubborn resistance; such are the times. That two members of the group have died since recording adds poignancy to The Last Time (We’ll Sing Together), but the Boys endure.
