Matt LuceyChristone “Kingfish” Ingram is a 26 year old rock and blues musician from Clarksdale Mississippi. With a family in the music industry, Kingfish was always destined to join the club. Growing up with his family singing in church, Kingfish was inspired. BB King, Jimi Hendrix and Prince all had a major impact on the young musician’s musical taste in his early years. At the age of 5, Kingfish was blown away by the sound of Muddy Waters and quickly became a guitar fanatic. He honed his skills playing guitar in local gigs where he earned a small fan base. Later years, Kingfish began gaining an online following as he gained more widespread attention.
His work to date
Releasing his first album, Kingfish, in 2019, Kingfish set the tone for his professional career. Produced by grammy-winning musician, Tom Hambridge, it was clear Kingfish intended to hit the ground running. This album was met with critical acclaim and became proof of concept for his later work. In the years following, Kingfish continued releasing stellar works of art. He excelled especially with his ability to back up his work with near perfect live performances. A favourite of mine was the album 662 which was released in 2021. During the Covid-19 pandemic, I found this fantastic new musician for the first time.
Lead-up to the album
“Nothing but your love”, “Bad Like Me” and “Voodoo Charm” are all singles released in a lead up to his next album, Hard Road. As is typical for his generation of musicians, this album has been teased consistently on his social media accounts. The album is set to release on September 26th of this year. This 3 track lead-up gives us a small taste of whats to come. Naturally, I will be excited to do a more complete review of this album on its release.
“Voodoo Charm”
Listening to the three tracks, I can say that they offer 3 quite different sounds. “Voodoo Charm” offers a nice mix of a BB King style, paired with something more modern with wah and more energetic bends a la Albert King. This track really pays homage to his heroes, with tireless licks played over a simple blues shuffle. Instead of relying on the “BB Box” scale, he seems to delve into some other interesting styles. Stevie Ray Vaughan was famous for this. He still relies heavily on the familiar blues sounds while spicing it up with some interesting licks.
“Nothin’ But Your Love”
“Nothin’ But Your Love“ is a much more soulful tune. With soft punctuated guitarwork, this gentle song feels refreshing in contrast to the previous song. With a set of backup singers, his voice suits this style just as much as his usual style. The harmonies don’t overwhelm the gentleness of this song. The bassy guitar licks also compliment the rest of the song, giving the track a feel of completeness. The mixing on this track especially feels polished. The guitar and style reminds me somewhat of John Mayer.
“Bad Like Me”
“Bad Like Me” is back to being a relatively high energy song with more Rocky influences. The guitarwork in this one is still present, though perhaps takes a backseat to the band sound and vocals. With a strong rhythm and drums, Kingfishes vocals here get to shine a bit more. Thats not to say that the parts of the guitarwork that shine through aren’t the highlights here. As is customary we get a nice tidy guitar solo towards the end. Its hard to make a guitar solo stand out in a blues rock song. Usually you’re confined to a set scale and the licks have all been created. That being said, Kingfish tends to shine in this respect. Taking scales that wouldn’t feel out of place in an Eric Johnson, Kingfish proves again that he’s not confined to the genre.
In Conclusion
This taste did exactly what it was meant to. As usual Kingfish has made me excited to listen to the full upcoming album. If you want blues that aren’t confined to convention, give Kingfish a go. My only issue is that, to my knowledge, he doesn’t regularly tour outside of the USA.
