CHRISTONE ‘KINGFISH’ INGRAM
Born in the same Mississippi town where legendary Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul to the devil, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram is leading a new generation of bluesmen. Instead of signing a deal with Satan, though, Ingram got his start at an after-school program.
Now 27, Ingram will headline the free Aug. 15 Morristown Jazz & Blues Festival as part of a national tour that is sure to grow a fan base that has seen him open for The Rolling Stones, win a Grammy, and contribute to the score of the Oscar-winning 2025 film “Sinners.”
Ingram grew up in Clarksdale, the home town of the infamous crossroads of Routes 61 and 49. While he grew up in a family that loved gospel music, his father introduced him to the blues via a PBS documentary on Muddy Waters.
“My dad made sure I knew where I came from and what the town represented,” he says.
His parents enrolled him in a class at Clarksdale’s Delta Blues Museum when he was 8 years old. He began to learn about the history of the genre, and how to play bass.
”I’m ashamed to admit this, but I didn’t really start having an appreciation for (the blues) until I got older, because I started understanding that it’s more than just a genre. It’s a part of our culture,” he says.
While his peers thought the blues was just old, sad music, Ingram continued to delve into the genre.
“B.B. King is the perfect example,” he says. “It’s not all sad — you know, ‘My baby left me.’ It’s all about having a good time and just forgetting your worries. Sometimes playing the blues makes you forget your blues.”
JEN ROSENSTEIN
CHRISTONE ‘KINGFISH’ INGRAM
Ingram picked up the guitar a few years later, teaching himself from various blues albums and from long talks with local musicians.
“I always wanted to have a life in music and, at that time, when I was learning, none of this was on my mind,” he says. “I didn’t know crap about no Grammy, no movie thing, publishing and albums. I just wanted to be a musician … It really hadn’t dawned on me until later where this could go — maybe like when I was maybe 15 to 16, I had a sense of that. That’s when it clicked that you could really go far with this.”
While still in his teens, he went from performing in local clubs to major blues festivals to sitting in on other artists’ albums. He played on an episode of the Netflix series, “Marvel’s Luke Cage” and with Rakim on NPR’s “Tiny Desk Concert.”
Ingram released his first album, the fiery Kingfish, in 2019, when he was 20. It went to No. 1 on the Billboard blues chart, was nominated for a Grammy, and received five Blues Music Awards, including Album of the Year. His follow-up — 662, named for Clarksdale’s area code — won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album.
“When I think about the blues, I don’t think of it in that sense of it being this mysterious, mystical thing: the vampires and everything,” he says, in a reference to the supernatural elements in “Sinners,” which tapped into the deep emotions and lore of the Delta blues. “I feel like anything that’s authentic, that has the soul in it, it’s always gonna be spiritual.”
Early in his career, he met veteran bluesman Buddy Guy, who recently turned 90. He toured with him, picking up performing and life advice. In the closing credits of “Sinners,” Ingram plays in Guy’s band.
Having been lifted up by older bluesmen, Ingram is paying it forward.
The cover of Christone “Kingfish” Ingram’s 2019 debut album, “Kingfish.”
“I’m pretty much like what Buddy Guy said: ‘Anything that keeps the blues rolling, I’m with it.’ As far as me personally, I just made my own label. I’m producing guys and stuff like that. So, just trying to do my part.”
Although his initial albums are straight-up electric blues, Ingram’s tastes in music always have been varied. On his most recent album, last year’s Hard Road, he brought those other facets of his musical personality to the fore with the sounds of rock, R & B and funk.
“Each album that I do, I always want to showcase growth, and with this record there had been a lot of it,” he says. “From me leveling up musically, and also just having different life experiences, growing as a man.”
Ingram says that the diversification of his sound is also meant to bring in younger audiences.
“Each show that we’ve been doing in the past year, I’m seeing more and more young faces. That’s always been my motto: Reach out and pull the young crowd in by adding something that they like to it. We kind of take them on a journey in my shows. We start with the blues, but by the time we end, we’re on another thing, but everything is deeply rooted in the blues.”
Christone “Kingfish” Ingram will perform at The Morristown Jazz & Blues Festival, on the Morristown Green, Aug. 15 at 8 p.m. Other performers will include Dylan Triplett (6 p.m.), LaBamba & the Hubcaps (4 p.m.), Richard Baratta’s Gotham City Latin/Jazz Septet (2 p.m.) and James Langton’s New York All-Star Big Band featuring Dan Levinson (noon). Visit morristownjazzandblues.com.
For more on Ingram, visit christonekingfishingram.com.
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