Meet the next great bluesman: Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram makes his Minneapolis debut

A kid can grow up in Memphis and not know Elvis' music. Or in Minneapolis and be unaware of Prince. Or in the Mississippi Delta hub of Clarksdale, and be oblivious to the blues.

Clarksdale-born Christone "Kingfish" Ingram discovered the blues not from the local museum or his parents' record collection. It was television.

"My dad showed me a PBS documentary on Muddy Waters," said Ingram, a 23-year-old guitar sensation who'll make his Minneapolis debut Wednesday at the State Theatre.

Enamored of Waters' voice and panache, Ingram then caught the regal B.B. King, performing "How Blue Can You Get" on one of his dad's favorite TV shows, "Sanford and Son."

"The B.B. King cameo was definitely like a big thing," he recalled.

The 5-year-old youngster got the bug. He started playing drums in church, then bass, and finally taking guitar lessons at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale.

He has quickly blossomed into the best young blues guitarist to emerge since Gary Clark Jr.

Ingram has shared stages with Buddy Guy and Jason Isbell, recorded a duet with Bootsy Collins and earned Grammy nominations for each of his first two albums. He performed at the White House at age 15 and last year appeared on Elton John's Apple Music podcast.

The guitar slinger with the resounding voice has played in clubs and festivals from California to New York, but he's never been in the Twin Cities.

"First time. I'm really excited," he said by phone this month. He plans to arrive a day early to go to Prince's Paisley Park museum.

"That's the first thing I had my booking agent do when I found out we were doing Minneapolis. I'm a super Prince fan, fo' sure. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, too. I'm really into that Minnesota funk sound."

Ingram appreciates Prince's diverse musical palette. "He wasn't pigeonholed in one lane. He was rock, he was R&B, he ran blues. I admired that."

Ingram has a song, "Too Young to Remember," that evokes Prince. "Yeah, that pocket funk thing," he said, with a smile that could be detected over the phone. "He was like the first guitar player I'd seen that played that style."

"Too Young to Remember" is featured on Ingram's second album, "662," named for his hometown's area code.

He lived the blues

He got the nickname Kingfish from his guitar teacher, because the youngster reminded him of a character from the 1950s sitcom "Amos 'n' Andy."

Around that time, the 16-year-old realized that blues was his calling.

"I started getting more involved in the culture. ... That made me realize this is something that's destined for me to do. I started a deep dive."

He lived the blues, too, after his parents broke up. "My mother and I became homeless for a short while. We had no place to go. This dirty, roach-infested motel." Meantime, he was "struggling with people in school. I got bullied."

Being an aspiring bluesman wasn't the coolest thing, even in Clarksdale. "My classmates were weirded out."

But now they're proud, he said.

"Blues is more important than ever," he observed, "with the racial tension and all this war — stuff that ain't necessary."

Like most teenagers, Ingram listened to hip-hop. He still does, whether it's Kendrick Lamar or the old-school G funk of Nate Dogg, but he also digs H.E.R., Robert Glasper and other musical adventurers.

Still, he sees himself as an old soul. "I think differently than the normal 23-year-old. I hang around older people. I've gotten wisdom."

That's apparent on "662," which shows his growth as a guitarist, vocalist and songwriter.

Ingram went to school on deep-voiced singers, such as Teddy Pendergrass and Barry White, and others with heavy vibrato, including Erykah Badu and Akon. He also tackled heavier topics in his lyrics, notably on "Another Life Goes By," written before George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis.

"Where does hate come from?" is how it opens. "How can we make it stop?"

Ingram said he told his producer that "I wanted to craft something that was meaningful from the first line."

Musically, the song has a contemporary R&B flavor. "When we made this record, I approached it with not being in one lane. People say that I'm just a shredder. I wanted to be more than that."

There's a jazzy, Southern soul vibe on "You're Already Gone," a '60s R&B feel on "That's All It Takes" and classic Delta blues spirit on the autobiographical "Something in the Dirt."

Ingram reworked a song called "Rock & Roll" to honor his mother, Princess Pride — his biggest champion — who died in 2019. The tune's original lyrics, by Sean McConnell and Ashley Ray, nod to the myth that Delta blues pioneer Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil, but Ingram couldn't have his mother doing that.

"My mom was very religious," so he tweaked the song to say "she made a deal with the angels and then never let go."

His mother was a first cousin to Charley Pride, the legendary country singer who "was pretty much the Jackie Robinson for country," Ingram noted. While he's never met Pride, "one of my cousins said Charley knew about me, and he told me to keep going."

Maybe there's something in the family genes. Or, as his song goes, "there's something in the dirt."

Christone "Kingfish" Ingram
Opening: Maggie Rose.
When: 7:30 p.m. Wed.
Where: State Theatre, 805 Hennepin Av. S., Mpls.
Tickets: $25-$45, ticketmaster.com