Christone "Kingfish" Ingram

There is a crossroads at the junction of Highways 61 and 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul there for the ability to play guitar. Whether you believe the legend or not, something extraordinary has always come out of that flat, cotton-field country. In January 1999, it happened again. Christone "Kingfish" Ingram was born there, and the blues — which certain people had been declaring dead for decades — turned out to be very much alive.

By the time he was twenty-three, Ingram had won a Grammy Award, swept nine Blues Music Awards without a single loss, appeared simultaneously on the covers of Guitar World and DownBeat, been praised by Elton John and Rolling Stone, and played the White House. He had done all of this while losing his mother — his biggest cheerleader, Princess Pride — in December 2019, and writing his most personal album in the grief that followed. That album, 662, named for the Mississippi area code he grew up in, is what won him the Grammy.

The beginning of the story is the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale. Ingram's father showed him a PBS documentary about Muddy Waters when he was five years old, and then kept his promise to take him to the museum to learn everything about it. There, under the instruction of Bill "Howl-N-Mad" Perry and Richard "Daddy Rich" Crisman, he started on drums at six, moved to bass at eleven, and picked up the guitar at thirteen. Perry gave him the nickname "Kingfish" after a character in The Amos 'n' Andy Show — a name that would end up on a Grammy.

"For years, I had to sit and watch the myth that young Black kids are not into the blues. So, I just hope I can show the world different."

— CHRISTONE "KINGFISH" INGRAM, Grammy acceptance speech, Las Vegas, 2022

The White House at Fourteen

In 2014, a student band from the Delta Blues Museum performed at the White House. Ingram was in it. He was fifteen. By the time he was eighteen, he was regularly sharing stages with Gary Clark Jr. and Eric Gales — guitarists who had been his heroes on YouTube. Tony Coleman, who had been B.B. King's drummer, saw him play and said he was playing the blues the way it was supposed to be played. Bootsy Collins shared his videos online. The music industry was paying attention long before the general public caught up.

His debut album, Kingfish, was released on Alligator Records in May 2019. It was nominated for a Grammy and won five Blues Music Awards. He opened for Vampire Weekend and Buddy Guy. He was on the cover of magazines. He was twenty years old, and the blues world had a new name to say in the same breath as the greats.

The crossroads of Highways 61 and 49, Clarksdale, Mississippi — where the blues began, and where Kingfish was born.

662 — The Album That Changed Everything

Then December 2019 arrived. Princess Pride — Ingram's mother, his first cousin to country legend Charley Pride, and the single parent who had worked countless hours to support his career — died. The whirlwind year came to a devastating stop. When the pandemic locked the world down in 2020, Ingram wrote and recorded 662 with Grammy-winning producer Tom Hambridge. It was the most personal thing he had ever done: an album that reflected the pandemic, the grief, the Mississippi area code he grew up in, and the determination to keep going.

At the 2022 Grammy Awards in Las Vegas, Ingram walked to the stage and beat Joe Bonamassa, Shemekia Copeland, and Steve Cropper for Best Contemporary Blues Album. He was twenty-three. His acceptance speech — brief, emotional, pointed — became one of the most quoted moments of the evening. A few weeks later, he won two more Blues Music Awards, bringing his career total to nine nominations, nine wins. It is reportedly a record.

"When it comes to the blues, I kind of look at it as being my history, my heritage. Rap is nothing but the blues' grandchild."

— CHRISTONE "KINGFISH" INGRAM

Kingfish live — the stage is where the tradition and the electricity meet.

Live in London — The Third Chapter

In June 2023, Ingram played The Garage in London. The recording became Live in London, released on Alligator Records — a document of a young artist at the peak of his powers, playing to a crowd that had come from across Europe to see him. The expanded edition, released in January 2024, earned him his third Grammy nomination. He was twenty-four years old and already had more Grammy nominations than most musicians accumulate in a career.

He has spoken about wanting to record a gospel album. He has spoken about the things he still wants to prove. For a man who has already won the Grammy, swept the BMAs, and played the White House before he could legally drink in the United States, the ambition is striking. But then, Clarksdale has always produced people who play like they have something to prove. The crossroads demands it.

The Brotherhood

Ingram's friendship with Jontavious "Quon" Willis — Just Gerald Magazine's previous Musician of the Month — is one of the more beautiful stories in contemporary blues. At the 2020 Grammy nominations, it was Kingfish who called Quon at nine in the morning to tell him they had both been nominated. They sat together at the ceremony. Two young Black men from the Deep South, both in their early twenties, both carrying the tradition forward in their own distinct ways — Quon acoustic and pre-war, Kingfish electric and contemporary — nominated in the same year, in the same category, for the same music.

"I felt real good being nominated along with my brother," Quon said afterward. "Two of us from the south — just that alone was enough for me. We didn't have to win. That means people will hear us, people will see us young guys. People keep saying over and over that there aren't any young Black guys doin' the blues no more. Well, that's gone now."