Young, gifted, and shreds the blues with a sure hand
Consider two facts from guitarist and songwriter Christone “Kingfish” Ingram's resume:
In 2022 he opened for The Rolling Stones during one of the group's massive Hyde Park concerts in London. And his album “662” — which refers to the area code of his Clarksdale, Miss., home — was named best contemporary blues album at the Grammy Awards.
And no less an encomium came recently from the living patriarch of post-World War II American blues scene, Buddy Guy, who called Ingram, 24, “the next blues explosion.”
Based on YouTube videos of “662,” including the title track and “Long Distance Woman, Ingram displays an astonishing mastery of the blues form while injecting a contemporary feel with his full-throated vocals and a well-measured style into his formidable instrumental work, by turns searing and sure-handed, brittle and soaring.
With a sound that circumscribes B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix and Prince, Ingram will get a chance this weekend to confirm why critics are showering him with praise when he performs at 3:05 p.m. on the JaMpad and at 5:45 p.m. Sunday on the Allianz Stage at the BottleRock festival in Napa.
While not a main festival headliner grouped with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lizzo or Lil Nas X, Ingram, a Blues Music Award recipient, likely will hold his own and justify his status as the modern avatar of Delta and
Chicago blues. He is a musician who has already headlined three U.S. tours, performed at Australia's largest music festival, and amazed
fans across Europe and the United Kingdom.
In a brief telephone interview Monday, Ingram said comments by Guy and music critics, including those on PBS and NPR, were “a fair assessment” of his skills and his ongoing role as the defining voice of the American art form that emerged in the rural south in the early 1900s and was first recorded in the 1920s.
“I have my own style,” said Ingram, who released his debut album, “Kingfish,” in 2019 on the Alligator Records imprint. “There's nothing wrong with it.”
No surprise that he came of age in Clarksdale, sometimes referred to as “the birthplace of the blues,” and the historic home of a pantheon of blues, R&E and rock and roll greats, among them Robert Johnson, Son House, John Lee Hooker, Ike Turner, Sam Cooke, Muddy Waters, Jackie Brenston, Lil Green, and Howlin' Wolf.
For blues fans, it's a mecca, boasting numerous blues clubs and museums, for American and foreign tourists.
Ingram, born into a family of musicians, said the blues bug infected him at an early age, when “old school blues was really booming. I got infatuated with the genre.” He cites B.B. King and Muddy Waters, aka McKinley Morganfield, as heroes but has eventually forged his own style.
Asked how he would explain or describe to a 10-year-old the nature of his music, he said, “I would say Delta blues that rocks,” referring to the early blues stylings of Son House and Robert Johnson, created in Mississippi River Delta region, with added rock notation. “I would say I'm following the Delta blues road and rocking it,” he added.