They Call Him Kingfish: An Interview with Christone Ingram

I have been following Christone "Kingfish" Ingram since he was a teenager. It was a pleasure to do this video interview about his new album, why he launched his own label and more.

Hard Road is a landmark album for Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. It is not only his first studio recording since 2021’s Grammy Award winning 662, but it is the first release on his own label, Red Zero Records. After two studio and one live album for Alligator Records that helped establish him as a rising star and likely future of the blues, Ingram has boldly charted his own path.

Ingram had just turned 20 when he debuted with his 2019 album, Kingfish, but he had already been gigging around his hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi for years, after learning to play at the Delta Blues Museum’s music education program. Buddy Guy’s endorsement and working with Guy’s producer and songwriter Tom Hambridge gave Ingram a boost, as did being signed to Alligator, the landmark Chicago label that was home to Albert Collins, Son Seals, Koko Taylor and other blues greats. The strength of his debut gave Kingfish immediate credibility and immediately created a buzz around him as the future of blues guitar playing.

Hard Road remains rooted in Kingfish’s singing and searing blues guitar playing, but the songwriting veers into more modern approaches, with touches of rock, pop and r&b. The songs’ lyrics also explore emotionally raw and complex topics of love, loss, identity and personal growth. Ingram, now 26, has seen a lot more of the world – both literally and metaphorically – than he had as a debut artist.

He lost his mother, Princess, his earliest and biggest supporter. He’s toured the world. He’s worked with legends like Guy and Steve Miller and appeared in the hit movie Sinners. And now he’s started a label and begun establishing himself in a new world. All the experiences are reflected in the songs of Hard Road.

Check out our conversation:

Allman Brothers Band and The Album That Defined The 70s, was recently released by St. Martin’s Press. It was the third consecutive one to debut in the New York Times Non-Fiction Hardcover Bestsellers List, following Texas Flood: The Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan and One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band. My first book, Big in China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising a Family, Playing the Blues and Becoming a Star in Beijing, about my experiences raising a family in Beijing and touring China with a popular original blues band, was optioned for a movie by Ivan Reitman’s Montecito Productions. I am also a guitarist and singer with two bands, Big in China and Friends of the Brothers, the premier celebration of the Allman Brothers Band.