It turns out that something good came out of the pandemic: the Grammy-nominated collaboration between the Blind Boys of Alabama and Black Violin on the song "The Message."

It all started when the Black Violin team reached out to the Blind Boys about doing some tour dates together. All involved considered that a great idea and shows were in the process of being booked when the world shut down. Eventually several of those shows did happen, but in the meantime both bands were stuck in lockdown along with everyone else. The idea was broached for each band to record a song and have the other artist appear (remotely) as guest, and that's exactly what happened, resulting in "The Message" from the Blind Boys side and "We Are One" coming from Black Violin.

Peter Levin, who has been playing and touring with the Blind Boys of Alabama since 2008, wrote the music for "The Message." Asked to describe his process in writing the song, Peter says "Since this was a collaboration with Black Violin, I wanted the string parts to be big and present. I began to build the track at my home studio in Nashville and as the music was coming together, I wanted the lyrics to shed some light on some of the major problems we are currently facing as a society. It's very important to the Blind Boys that the lyrics for their songs are positive and uplifting. So with that in mind I started to craft the lyrics." Peter continues: "Once I had the track built and a skeleton of the lyrics, we gathered at The Nutthouse in Muscle Shoals. That's where the band added to the track I had built, and the singers added their vocals. Charles Driebe massaged the lyrics and shared in production duties with me there as well. Marcus King was added later on guitar. He played on the whole track and nailed the killer solo towards the end."

Summing up, Peter says "It was a real honor to finally get to work with the Blind Boys as a writer and producer. We all knew we had something special right off the bat with "The Message." It's a song about positivity, awareness and rising above the problems that are facing all of us collectively. It is a message to us all...a wake up call. And so it made total sense to call the song "The Message."