By Larry Nager
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The good news is that the Blind Boys of Alabama gave a great free concert Monday night at the Cincinnati Zoo. The bad news of course, is that headliner Etta James refused to perform in a dispute over payment.

It was an unfortunate start for the "Wild Nights at the Zoo" concert series, as the show was ultimately canceled after the crowd of 1,000 had waited for the R&B great for almost an hour, sitting outside in sporadic, drizzling rain.

Until then, it was a night to remember for the right reasons.

Sure, it felt more like October than June when the Blind Boys started their show, but the group's spirit-filled music quickly warmed the diverse crowd. Within minutes, everyone was up, clapping hands and shouting to the group's irresistible Southern gospel.

Leader Clarence Fountain sat for most of the 55-minute set, leaving the heavy lifting to his partner Jimmy Carter, the primary lead singer and the other longtime member of the group, formed in 1939 at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind. Carter was a walking miracle, his voice sounding better at the end of the show than at the start. His performance included a lengthy walk through the crowd in the zoo's pavilion, singing into a wireless microphone like a man possessed.

The group mixed contemporary material, including Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground," the title cut of their newest Grammy-winning CD, and a song Ben Harper wrote for them, "I Shall Not Walk Alone," with more "churchy" music, as Fountain called it. They also put new twists on old hymns. Lead guitarist Joey Williams opened one song with the eerie arpeggios of the Animals' arrangement of "House of the Rising Sun." But when Carter started to sing, it was an unusual, minor-key "Amazing Grace."

The real crowd pleasers were their "churchy" songs; the old-fashioned gospel rave-ups that mixed raw-silk harmonies with powerful lead singing and a relentless, syncopated beat. Several older women leapt to their feet in ecstatic dance as the Blind Boys turned Monday night into Sunday morning.

But the show still desperately needed a Saturday night dose of Etta James. As much as they loved the Blind Boys, most of the crowd was there for the R&B legend. Still, with WCIN footing the bill and refunding tickets, few could argue with a free concert.

E-mail lnager@enquirer.com