Archie Brownlee

One of gospel's greatest lead singers, Archie Brownlee was a founding member of the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi and was equally impressive singing sweetly or with his characteristic piercing screams that later influenced the soul music of the mid-'60s. Blind since birth, Brownlee enrolled in the Piney Woods School near Jackson, Mississippi at the age of six. Five years later, he was harmonizing with fellow students and they began appearing as the Cotton Blossom Singers to raise money for the school. Folklorist Alan Lomax invited the group into the studio in 1937, and by 1944, they began performing professionally as the Blind Boys. Their early-'50s single "Our Father" became one of the first gospel tunes to reach the Billboard R&B charts. Brownlee was at his peak of popularity when he succumbed to pneumonia at the age of 35.