Christone “Kingfish” Ingram plays a mean guitar for a guy barely old enough to drink in most states. And he has a reverence for the Blues that is uncommon in an artist so young. I reached out to Ingram recently as he was preparing to go out on tour, finally, in support of his new album, 662, which is named for the area code in the Mississippi Delta region from which he hails.
“When I first started, and started to learn, it’s kind of like a ritual when you come to Clarksdale,” he said, describing his days working with, and learning from, bluesmen like Sean “Bad” Apple. Ingram has been playing professionally since he was 11.
Growing up, he was listening to and playing the Blues, which was unusual even in Mississippi. “When I was in school, my classmates, of course, listened to the usual hip-hop, top 40 stuff.” Among Ingram’s heroes were Jimmy Reed, B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Lightnin’ Hopkins (as he says on “Too Young to Remember” on 662). He told me was also influenced and inspired by Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Son House and R.L. Burnside.
Ingram, who never had a 9 to 5 job, started writing songs as a boy and now has quite a collection, many of his songs autobiographical. He said his first title was “something like ‘Please Don’t leave Me This Way’,†which he said he later trashed. He said “Outside of this Town†was the first song he wrote ever to make it into a recording.
Ingram said the global pandemic sidelined his career in a big way. “At the beginning, I kind of thought we’d be out of this in like three months,” he said. “It definitely was an eye-opener.” But he said he tried to make the best of it, using the time to do song-writing and writing his new album while in quarantine trying to be safe. But he found time to binge watch “The Boondocks†and “60 Day In.â€
All told, Ingram makes clear that the future of the Blues is in good hands. He can rock, but like any great bluesman he also knows when to step back and let the song roll out. His first album, Kingfish, announced his arrival in 2019, and 662 is a great sophomore effort. You can get an idea of why critics are excited about Ingram by listening to the selections below. Among the best songs off 662 are the title track, the earnest “Another Life Goes By,” “Too Young to Remember,” the slow cooking “Something in the Dirt,” and the eloquent “Rock and Roll.”
About the author: Bill Wilcox is a roots music enthusiast recently relocated from the Washington, DC area to Philadelphia, PA and back again.