Blind Boys' Scott Dies

George Scott, baritone singer and founding member of veteran gospel group the Blind Boys of Alabama, died Wednesday at age seventy-five. He had been suffering from diabetes and a heart condition, which forced him to take a hiatus from the multi-Grammy-winning group last year.

"We're grateful to the Lord for letting us have George for as long as we did," lead singer Clarence Fountain said. "He and I grew up together and sang together from little boys to old men. George was a great singer. He could sing any part in a song."

Scott, Fountain and three of their schoolmates formed the group, originally called the Happy Land Jubilee Singers, while attending Alabama's Talladega Institute for the Deaf and Blind in 1937. They landed a deal with Specialty Records and scored their first gospel hit with "I Can See Everybody's Mother But Mine" in 1948.

They will release their new album, Atom Bomb, on Tuesday.

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Song Stories

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz | 2008

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."

More Song Stories entries »

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