The young guitarist blues icon Robert Cray calls ‘really cool’ is coming to Lexington

Editor’s note: It was announced Thursday, Nov. 4 that Christone “Kingfish” Ingram’s Nov. 9 scheduled show has been moved to Friday, Jan. 14 due to “unforeseen circumstances.” All tickets will be honored at that show.

Before his Frankfort concert over the summer, I asked multi-Grammy winning bluesman Robert Cray if he felt encouraged about the current creative state of blues music.

“Yeah, but everybody’s doing it their own way,” Cray replied. “You see guys like Kingfish and it’s really cool. They’ve got their own take on stuff.”

That means you can add Cray’s name to the list of blues elders and contemporaries looking to Christone “Kingfish” Ingram as one of the key torchbearers forging a new generational audience for the blues. Ingram has shared the stage with such pioneers as Buddy Guy, toured with such non-blues peers as Vampire Weekend and recorded with such modern blues/pop stylists as Keb’ Mo’.

But the real in-roads Ingram has made has been with everyday audiences. Through two albums with Chicago’s esteemed Alligator Records – 2019’s “Kingfish” and 2021’s “662” - he has established a thick, meaty sound that owes greatly rock and soul.

He may have grown up in the Mississippi blues metropolis of Clarksdale listening to Lightnin’ Hopkins and B.B. King, but his resulting Alligator music also nods generously to the electric intensity of such younger rock-savvy stylists as Gary Clark Jr. and Eric Gales.

As a result, finding a way for the blues to evolve without losing sight of the music’s vast tradition is making Ingram, at age 22, one of the most heralded and recognized blues artists of his generation.

“With my blues, everything is rooted in a tradition,” said Ingram, who performs at Manchester Music Hall on Nov. 9. “There are a lot of guys these days that are doing some great things within the blues all while being rooted in tradition You’ve got (Georgia-born singer and multi-instrumentalist) Jontavious Willis and a couple of the soul guys like Mr. Sipp (popular “Mississippi blues child” Castro Coleman.) You want to keep this music evolving, but you also want to respect the tradition, as well. You want to respect what the forefathers laid out for you.”

Ingram came to the blues early in life. His Clarksville upbringing saw to that, but so did his parents. Initially fascinated by drums and bass, he moved to guitar. But when his father introduced him to a PBS documentary on Muddy Waters at the age of five, the blues took hold. Guitar studies began in earnest at 11 with regional performances by the time he hit seventh grade.

“My dad was the person who bought me my first guitar, even with the people around him telling him to put me in football because of my size. But he was the one who got me the keyboards, the guitars, everything.

“A little bit later in life, when I started playing out, my mom became my manager. She was my biggest supporter and my biggest champion. Through her guidance, I got to be on different TV shows in different countries. She showed me what life was like outside of Mississippi. Both of my parents, in more ways than one, were a big help and a big influence, for sure.”

The guitarist’s mother, Princess Latrell Pride Ingram, died in December 2019. The “662” album closes with requiem of sorts to her. Titled somewhat deceptively “Rock and Roll,” the tune is a relaxed acoustic remembrance with a touch of gospel warmth surfacing in its chorus. It’s indicative of the stylistic diversity and personal emotional investment that runs through much of Ingram’s music.

The considerable attention that music has been shown over the last two years hasn’t been lost on Ingram. Neither have the negative side effects that can sometimes result when a young artist receives such weighty praise – as in, hype – at such an early age.

“It can really mess with your head,” Ingram said. “You have people swelling up your head because they want stuff from you. In this day and age, I just try to not focus on it but still appreciate it. I try to keep my head straight with what it’s about – the music and the people, rather than companies – because sometimes you can start believing your own hype. That’s something that I just don’t want to get into.”

Our conversation ended with the same question posed to Cray in August: Is blues music in a good place? Is it creatively healthy enough to survive so future generations can appreciate it?

“There’s kind a mixed answer to that. For a younger generation, I would say yes because you’ve got Gary Clark Jr. and other mainstream bands like the Black Pumas. There’s blues in their music, so somewhere, somehow people are getting exposed to it. But it’s also kind of in a bad place, as well. The blues is part of African-American culture. Sometimes people kind of forget that. But I’ve seen that there has been more of a black resurgence and more artists of African-American descent helping to make that clear. They just want equal opportunity for everybody – not just in being onstage, but in being promoted, doing shows and managing artists.

“As long as my goal is to keep everything rooted to where people can hear the blues, understand them and then hopefully get the young kids talking about them, I think I’m doing pretty alright.”

Christone “Kingfish” Ingram

When: 8 p.m. Nov. 9

Where: Manchester Music Hall, 899 Manchester St.

Tickets: $25

Online: manchestermusichall.com

Stevie Wonder tribute

Bonus concert pick of the weekend: We’ve seen Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and John Lennon get the tribute treatment every fall around this time thanks to Music for Mission, Purple Carrots Productions and a host of prime local and regional artists. On Nov. 5, the songs of Stevie Wonder will take the stage at First Presbyterian Church, 171 Market St., through performances by Joslyn and the Sweet Compression, Marcus L. Wilkerson, the Bruce Lewis Quartet and many others. Tickets are free for the 7:30 p.m. performance or its simultaneous live stream. However, donations are encouraged to benefit Music for Mission’s chosen charity for the event, Central Music Academy.

For in-person tickets, go to eventbrite.com. Masks will be required for all patrons.

The stream will be viewable at fpclex.com.m4m.

This story was originally published November 2, 2021 at 6:00 AM.