Overview
Hailed by Rolling Stone as “a rare 21st century guitar hero and the undisputed future of the blues,” Christone “Kingfish” Ingram stands at the crossroads of history and innovation, channeling the spirit of the Delta while boldly reimagining what comes next. Now, with his new album, Hard Road, Kingfish looks back at his extraordinary GRAMMY® Award-winning journey thus far by lighting out for previously unexplored musical territory, infusing his signature sound with a genre-blurring approach fraught with creative urgency and heretofore untapped emotional range.
Executive Produced by Ingram and Ric Whitney for Kingfish’s newly minted Red Zero Records with production by Patrick “Guitar Boy” Hayes, Nick Goldston, and longtime collaborator Tom Hambridge, Hard Road is Ingram’s most sophisticated and musically ambitious collection yet, one which renews the long tradition of the blues by welding it to multiple strains of contemporary Black music. Songs like “Nothin’ But Your Love” and the fiery “Voodoo Charm” see Kingfish effortlessly uniting classic blues licks with hard rock, no-holds-barred funk, soulful pop, and velvety R&B, all with resounding immediacy and astounding eloquence. With each album, Kingfish has upped his already prodigious game, not only in his breathtaking guitar playing but in the increasing strength of his deeply personal songcraft and vocals marked by a depth of expression well beyond his 26 years.
“I feel like this is one of the first times people will be seeing me outside of just the blues thing,” Kingfish says. “ I’ve always wanted to do music that showcases my voice and my songwriting as well as my guitar playing. And I feel like this is the first album that showcases this approach.”
A native son of Clarksdale, Mississippi — the de facto Ground Zero for the Delta blues, just a stone’s throw from the fabled crossroads where Robert Johnson made his fateful deal with the devil — Kingfish’s six-string prowess first turned heads when he was still but a teenager. Though steeped in the tones of B.B. King, Albert King, and Buddy Guy, what set Ingram apart was how he expanded the form, blending in funk, soul, rock, pop, and jazz to create what has proven an evolving body of work that has drawn accolades, acclaim, and honors from all corners of the globe. 2019’s debut album, Kingfish, topped Billboard’s “Blues Albums” for an incredible 91 weeks and earned him his first GRAMMY® Award nomination, plus three Blues Music Awards, including “Album of the Year.” Kingfish followed up with 2021’s 662, titled after his hometown MS area code, which won both the GRAMMY® Award and Blues Music Award for “Best Contemporary Blues Album.” In 2023, the incendiary Live In London received yet another GRAMMY® Award nomination as well as his second Blues Music Award for “Album of the Year” and third consecutive triumph in the “Best Contemporary Blues Album.”