03 July 2022 (released)
06 July 2022
I had the honour of grabbing some time, for Music News, backstage, at the Sixty Year tour of The Rolling Stones, with Grammy award winning and Delta Blues artist, Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram.
Mississippi born, Ingram, 23 and Blues prodigy, is an artist to watch and clearly The Rolling Stones saw this raw talent, as he fired up the crowd at the BST festival, Hyde Park.
It’s lovely to meet you Christone (shake hands) and thank you for your time, when did you arrive in the UK?
Yesterday, we flew from Memphis to St.Paul, then to Minneapolis (you must be tired?) Yes, (laughing) a bit. It’s not our first time here, we love it, we were actually here a few weeks ago, for a small tour at Saint Lukes, Glasgow. We’re coming back, like we never left pretty much (laughing).
What brings you to support The Rolling Stones?
Oh man, they just reached out and we were like hell yeah we’ll take the opportunity. I’ve always been a fan of The Stones, always enjoyed their music – so to get this opportunity for sure, for sure (yes, I’ll take this call) – (laughing).
I hear that one of your influences is Prince?
That’s the guy, (favourite track?) Sign ‘O’ The Times is on there, ‘I Can Never Take The Place Of Your Man’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Lover’ and a bluesy song, ‘The Ride’.
You learnt your first guitar in a school programme?
Yeah, Delta Museum Arts & Education programme. (What was that like?) they teach kids from age 6 to 66 – different instruments in the room – teaching Delta Blues, Chicago Blues. When I went in, I under the tutors of two local, nationally known Blues men – where I learnt Blues history and that’s who gave me the name, ‘Kingfish’.
On your Grammy award winning album, ‘662’, what experiences influenced you to start writing?
When we off the road, during Covid, just wanted to write about experiences in the last two years, dealing with death in the family (so sorry to hear this), love and that. As far as influences, it was R ‘n’B ish, Jazzy type of corporations – everything is primary guitar nowadays for me.
What’s your opinion about the Blues & are you trying to bring it to the forefront?
Not only that, it’s that Blues, was born from the African-American people – and some people don’t realise or know that and they don’t wanna to realise that. I just wanna show, that there are young black kids, who are still into that history, and show that they love this music, cos where I come from there are kids, like me, who only like rap and hip hop, they do, but that’s not all they like. Other kids like me like The Blues, and I just want to show the masses this.
Who is your fanbase?
(Manager) it’s an interesting cross section – you can look in a crowd and see a mix of white, black, Asian –there’s YouTubers, influencers, 40s, 50s up to 70s.
Are there any musicians you’d like to play alongside?
Man, there are like some different hip hop, jazz artists, that I’m into- there’s Thundercat, Anderson .Pakk, Anthony Hamilton – I wanna do more in, the R ‘n’ B realm for sure, more showcasing my voice.
If you could take three things from the influence of Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix and B.B.King, what would it be?
Their innovation, each of those guys took The Blues further in their own way, with their traditional values. B.B.King would write some beats, had his modernised flavour, Muddy Waters took The Blues from Mississippi, then he went to Chicago and electrified it, his smooth out there voice, his slides, and Hendrix, the proof is there, he just took The Blues and made his own genre – Blues Rock – So yeah, I like how they were all innovators for sure.
What are your future plans?
I want to create more music, create more memories for the masses – I’m actually working with different and new producers, on the hunt for different sounds. Try to take take life experience and write about it more.
Thank you for your time Christone and it was lovely to meet you.
Thank you Ma’am…
