POP MUSIC REVIEW : Five Blind Boys at the Palomino

Credit the Five Blind Boys of Alabama with not catering too much to the Palomino audience during their hourlong performance Monday night. The veteran gospel group steered clear of the up-tempo numbers that invariably rouse a non-gospel audience in the early going in favor of slow and mid-tempo material, but the set’s flawed pacing yielded an uneven show.

The Blind Boys weren’t at full strength Monday. Only three of the usual quintet--lead singer Clarence Fountain, Jimmy Carter and J.T. Clinkscales--were on hand. Guitarist Sam Butler and bassist Bobby Butler capably filled in the missing vocal links.

Fountain took most of the lead vocals, mixing in occasional deep, mellifluous bass phrases and scratchy falsetto passages with his rough, gritty shouts. An a cappella piece in which the entire quintet affected a thrilling upward swoop midsong and then closed by dropping, one note at a time, into a perfect harmony blend was an early triumph.

The funky “We Don’t Need No Dope,” spiced by Fountain’s Sly Stone-style whoops, also connected before Carter took the lead and roared through a few minutes of the fast, hand-clapping exhortations that the audience had clearly been waiting for. But the versions of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “If I Had a Hammer” following those high points deflated the momentum.