CHRISTONE KINGFISH INGRAM - HARD ROAD

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.”

Having now seen the world and returned home irrevocably changed, Kingfish was determined to push himself as a songwriter, baring his soul and revealing new shades to his character. “Crosses” showcases Kingfish’s personal spirituality with a righteous roar of rock ‘n’ roll testimony while “Clearly” and the heartbreaking “Hard To Love” sees him reaching acceptance that the path he’s chosen for himself is strewn with both the highest of highs but also agonizing lows.

“I’m still learning this songwriting thing as I go,” says Kingfish. “I learned telling your story is the best story. I’m having more personal life experiences as I go and that plays a big part in the songwriting. I always try to get a little bit more personal than before.

“I have a journal pad here in the studio but most of the time I’m pretty much writing on my phone. The writing goes on in the studio, it goes on in the hotel room and on the bus. If the line comes, I’ll just jot it down in my notes. I feel like, for musicians, that part of us kind of never turns off.”

Dripping with lusty energy and bewitching sensuality, the slinky funk of “S.S.S.” expands the parameters of Kingfish’s music to incorporate other facets of his personal tastes. The elemental power of his guitar remains at the center, with its searing tone and squalls of blistering leads, but Hard Road makes unexpected stops at smooth R&B, pop, and neo-soul, genres that tend to demand a bit more delicacy in their arrangements and instrumentation.

“In those genres of music, you have to be a little more restrained with your playing,” Kingfish says. “You have to tell a story rather than being all over the place. That’s a good thing, because it showcases another side of my playing, rather than people thinking that I might be a one trick pony when it comes to guitar techniques.”

None of which to say Kingfish has pulled back from his spellbinding guitar mastery – far from it. His playing throughout is fraught with flash, fervor, and finesse that retains its deep roots in the electric blues tradition while ascending to new heights of technical prowess and dynamic invention.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Kingfish says, “there’s definitely some shredding this on the record. But I feel like there’s more subtlety as well. It’s a good balance, I think.

“I just love what I do,” he adds. “I’m passionate about the guitar and I want to showcase that. I’m not trying to impress anybody.”

Kingfish is supported in his resolute efforts by a divergent trio of producers, each of whom brings something exceptional to the proceedings. Tom Hambridge, a 4x GRAMMY® Award-winner known for his work alongside such iconic artists as Buddy Guy, Johnny Winter, James Cotton, and countless others, once again took his place behind the board having previously collaborated with Kingfish on his two previous studio recordings.

“Me and Tom have a really good working relationship,” Kingfish says. “We have a chemistry for sure. The new songs we wrote together, like ‘Voodoo Charm,’ all came together quite nicely. For me, Tom brings experience. He’s taught me a lot about songwriting, about telling a story and how to paint a picture to the audience.”

Eager to up the ante for Hard Road, Kingfish also enlisted pop songwriter/producer Nick Goldston – with whom he previously collaborated on 2020’s “Rock & Roll,” an intensely emotional tribute to his late mother, Princess Pride – as well as Patrick “Guitarboy” Hayes,” a veteran producer/musician who has worked with R&B stars like Trey Songz, Usher, and Keyshia Cole and first made Kingfish’s acquaintance while both attended the 2020 GRAMMY® Awards. Each producer guided their respective sessions towards varying sounds and styles, offering Kingfish fresh perspectives on how to approach his own utterly distinctive artistry, from his signature instrumental proficiency to bringing heretofore untapped depth to his vocal abilities.

With Patrick and Nick, I learned more about singing melodies,” Kingfish says,  “Singing something that the listener can remember and hum or sing along to. It’s different from the sort of straight blues I’m used to. You know, in the blues you have that gospelly, minor pentatonic singing. But these other genres, you have to really sing each line, if that makes sense.”

Hard Road marks still another milestone for Kingfish as the first-ever release on his own Red Zero Records. Co-founded by Kingfish and manager Ric Whitley, the newly launched label will further his avowed mission to propel the blues ever onwards by giving a platform to uplift not only young artists like himself but hard-working regional musicians who have yet to surface into national consciousness.

“That’s something me and Ric have been talking about since 2019,” Kingfish says. “I was watching a Sam Cooke documentary, and he was, right before his death, putting together a label. Something he said on the documentary, he said he just wanted to give a chance to artists who didn’t get the same opportunity as he did, or no opportunity at all. So that what we’re trying to do over here. Not only do I have complete control of my music, but the big thing for me was, there’s a whole lot of other guys and girls that’s leading the life in this blues world. But they don’t have the same resources or the same opportunities as I did. So we’re just trying to be that helping hand.”

Having already transformed modern blues with his landmark success, Kingfish is determined to pay it forward. Hard Road reaches its destination with the raw-boned purity of “Memphis,” a slice of front porch acoustic blues stripped clean of effect pedals and high voltage yet still as exhilarating as anything that preceded it. With its unwavering focus on personal reflection, studio craftsmanship, and contemporary sounds, Hard Road is a declaration of Christone Kingfish Ingram’s still rising confidence and ability, a modern blues fusion that affirms this preternaturally gifted artist’s steadfast intent to carry the flame for the music that made him and share its special magic and power across genre and generation.

“We see a lot more young people in the crowd these days,” Kingfish says. “Which is great because that’s pretty much what we’re trying to do – we’re trying to lure my generation in, and then once we get them in, we can show them about the real raw thing.”

# # #