Morgan Freeman Released A Blues Album And It May Be The Most Unexpected Project Of The Year
Morgan Freeman has won an Oscar, narrated documentaries heard by hundreds of millions, and played God twice. One year before his 90th birthday, he has produced a blues album. Morgan Freeman's Symphonic Blues Experience arrived mid August via Decca Music, and the origin story behind it is as compelling as the record itself. Twenty-five years ago, Freeman was in Clarksdale, Mississippi when visitors asked where to hear blues music. The musicians were there, but the venue was not. So he co-founded the Ground Zero Blues Club to give the blues a permanent home where it began. This album is a direct extension of that commitment featuring 12 tracks tracing 100 years of Delta blues, from Blind Willie Johnson's 1927 "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" to "I Lied To You" from the Sinners soundtrack. Freeman narrates and produces throughout, his voice weaving between tracks as guide and witness. He does not sing. He does not need to. "I heard the blues for the first time on my grandmother's porch in the Mississippi Delta," he said. "It has never left me."
The lineup is remarkable including Taj Mahal and Keb' Mo', with a combined 12 Grammy wins, lead the charge. Shemekia Copeland takes "Traveling Riverside Blues." Alvin Youngblood Hart handles B.B. King's "The Thrill Is Gone." Band tracks were recorded at Royal Studios in Memphis. The orchestral arrangements from the Chineke! Orchestra, Europe's pioneering majority-Black classical ensemble, were captured at Abbey Road in London. The result feels simultaneously ancient and cinematic: raw Delta blues under sweeping strings, classic songs in new bodies.
Our favorite track on the album is the second, "Crossroads," performed by Super Chikan which is a raw, stomping take on one of the most iconic songs in blues history that perfectly captures the spirit of everything Freeman set out to build.
Our Happy News Album Rating:
