They started with lead singer Archie Brownlee, their single "Our Father" reached number ten on the Billboard R&B charts in early 1951.
The students — Brownlee, Joseph Ford, Lawrence Abrams, and Lloyd Woodard — originally sang under the name "the Cotton Blossom Singers", performing jubilee quartet and secular material, to raise money for the school.
Their teacher, Martha Louise Morrow Foxx,[4] helped organize the blind singers at the behest of the school founder Laurence C. Jones.
On March 9, 1937, Brownlee and the others recorded sacred tunes (as the Blind Boys) and three secular numbers (as Abraham, Woodard, and Patterson) for Library of Congress researcher Alan Lomax.
After graduation in the early forties, they began performing professionally singing pop music as the Cotton Blossom Singers and religious material under the name The Jackson Harmoneers.
Even though Harris' influence was persuasive—the Blind Boys at first covered Soul Stirrers songs almost exclusively—Brownlee's high voice, which could move from a sweet croon to a devastating scream, was one of the most recognizable in gospel.
And over the course of 10 years the Blind Boys recorded such hits as "Old Ship Of Zion", "Coming Home", "Will Jesus Be Waiting?