CCPA Jams With The Blind Boys of Alabama Featuring Special Guest Bobby Rush on Fri., February 9, 8:00 PM

CERRITOS, CA – The Gospel Music Hall of Fame group The Blind Boys of Alabama returns to the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts (CCPA) with show opener and Blues Hall of Famer Bobby Rush on Friday, February 9, 8:00 PM. Tickets start at $45.                               

Since 1939, THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA has sung a fervent blend of traditional and contemporary Gospel music, earning acclaim and accolades along the way. The group makes Gospel “zestier” by “adding jazz and blues idioms and turning up the volume,” raves The New York Times.

From singing for pocket change in the Jim Crow South to performing for three different American presidents and sound-tracking the Civil Rights movement, The Blind Boys of Alabama has defined and redefined modern Gospel music as we know it. A master at bringing out the most spiritual aspects of mainstream music, the ensemble has won legions of loyal fans and widespread acclaim with a repertoire of soul-searching songs and four-part harmony sound. With Grammys for Spirit of the Century, Higher Ground, Go Tell It on the Mountain, There Will Be a Light, and Down in New Orleans, The Blind Boys was also inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and the Christian Music Hall of Fame.

Rolling Stone magazine called The Blind Boys’ critically acclaimed album Down in New Orleans, a celebration of The Big Easy’s Gospel-influenced soul, “a superweapon of Roots-music uplift.” The Washington Post praised it as “inspired and relevant. ... [It] borders on the miraculous.” The band’s latest album is the acclaimed Echoes of the South.

Called “a masterful entertainer, part comic, part storyteller and part musician” by the Minnesota Star Tribune, Blues Hall of Famer BOBBY RUSH opens the show. The “King of the Chitlin Circuit” has a “keen wit and ribald sense of humor that dispels the notion that the blues is chiefly a genre for expressing sadness and hard luck stories,” hails the Times Union.

With Porcupine Meat, Rush garnered his first Grammy and one of 12 Blues Music Awards. He accomplished that feat again with Rawer Than Raw, an all-acoustic effort that pays tribute to the rich Blues history of Mississippi. The work won a Grammy for “Best Traditional Blues Album.” Other acclaimed Rush albums include Sitting on Top of the Blues, Hoochie Man, Down in Louisiana, and Decisions. His autobiography is I Ain’t Studdin’ Ya: My American Blues Story. 

For tickets or more information, call (562) 916-8500 or go to cerritoscenter.com.