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

“Tonight's the Night”

The Shirelles | 1960

The lead cut and title track from this girl group's debut album, "Tonight's the Night" was written by 19-year-old bandmember Shirley Owens, who sings lead, and producer Luther Dixon. The band from Passaic, New Jersey met in high school, first calling themselves the Pequellos. The song's frank thoughts about sexual and emotional surrender was racy for the time, but that didn't stop the Chiffons from cutting a similar version immediately after the original came out. "We were the first female group to write some of our own material," band member Beverly Lee recalls. "We did have some say-so in our writing."

More Song Stories entries »

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