Along with the millions of people who’ve seen it, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram liked what he saw and heard in Sinners, this year’s left-field blues-and-vampires flick. It helped that he was also in it: That’s Ingram (who snagged the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album in 2022) jamming with Buddy Guy in the film’s closing scene. “As far as putting the blues in the mainstream media, I’m behind it,” he says. “As Mr. Guy says, whatever can keep the blues flowing.”
But is that movie, for all its acclaim and the way it immersed audiences in Thirties Mississippi Delta blues, enough to keep it alive? Ingram’s not so sure of that, so he’s done what few if any twentysomething blues musicians have ever done. After three records for the renowned blues indie label Alligator, Ingram and his manager, Ric Whitney, announced the launch of their own company last year. Named after two of the earliest places Ingram played during his teen days in Clarksdale, Mississippi (Red’s Lounge and the Ground Zero Blues Club), Red Zero will get up and running next week with Ingram’s third studio record, Hard Road.
But Ingram has loftier goals in mind for the company, which he hopes will foster a new generation of blues musicians and prevent them from being ripped off as so many of the genre’s founding players were. “I just figured I was at a time in my career where I could start helping other young blues musicians and singers to be shown more in the spotlight,” Ingram says from Los Angeles, where he’s lived for more than three years after following a girlfriend there. “A lot of artists have been shot down or given bad deals altogether. There has been lot of awareness of the gentrification of the genre and people getting ripped off. And we don’t want to see them hung up like that. I was lucky enough to get a good deal, because I had solid people around me. Everyone doesn’t have that. So, we just want to be that guy, for some people.”
The idea for Red Zero dates back at least six years, when Ingram and Whitney were watching a documentary on the late R&B and soul singer Sam Cooke. The film also explored SAR, the label Cooke co-founded a few years before he was shot to death. One of the few Black-owned labels at the time —the early Sixties — SAR is largely forgotten now but helped launch the careers of Billy Preston, Bobby Womack, and many more. “Sam Cooke said something that kind of got me,” Ingram says. “He said he started a label for the ones who don’t get an opportunity. I see a lot of artists like that.”
In 2022, Ingram spoke with Rolling Stone about the new generation of young Black musicians who were seeking to reclaim the music given the dominance of white musicians on the blues charts and blues cruises. Just a few years later, Ingram has witnessed a shift, which became another reason to start his label. “Since that last interview we did, I would have gave you a different answer,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot of young artists of color coming out and playing this music, or music based on this genre. I see a lot of parallels between Americana and blues music. People are craving more music that’s authentic.”
Red Zero — which will join a small group of thriving indie blues labels, like Alligator, Blind Pig, Gulf Coast, and Delmark — will be grounded in the music, at least in the start. “We want to take care of the home team first before we venture out into other genres,” Ingram says. “And it’s not just young kids. We’re looking at some middle-aged blues players and older players. Just anybody who needs to be seen.” To date, the label has signed two artists: St. Louis-born soul and blues singer Dylan Triplett, who reminds Ingram of Bobby “Blue” Bland, and Houston singer and guitarist Mathias Lattin.
The launch hasn’t be without its challenges. According to Whitney, “A lot of people may not have expected [the label idea] for someone at his age.” Ingram concurs: “I did get pushback from certain people,” he says. “Not directly. It was just things I was hearing: that I was too young and I really didn’t know what I was doing, and blah, blah, blah. I look at it like this: If I wasn’t trying to do anything, or trying to help out anybody, they still would have something to say. So I just forget them.”
As much as Ingram wants to promote the music that he’s been playing since he was in grade school, he wants the music to bust out, especially in a crowded musical and cultural landscape. “People don’t want to admit it, but we live in a world where there are just so many outlets now,” he says. “People can take the blues wherever, as long as you’re not disrespecting the genre or disrespecting the forefathers or being ignorant in some way. Not only that, let’s just say this: a lot of folks have no problem mixing the blues with other genres. I just think a lot of people think that the only way you can do it is when you mix it with rock. That’s where the problem lies. Why not put some soul with it? Or some R&B or hip hop?”
That cocktail of blues and other genres runs through Hard Road, Ingram’s first studio album since the Grammy-winning 662 in 2021. His guitar still blazes and smolders throughout the record, but it’s also the first of his albums to place equal emphasis on his singing and grooves rooted in modern pop. “I’ve always wanted to do music with an R&B flavor, like Barry White meets Hendrix,” he says. That blend is heard on “Standing on Business” and the album’s slow-jammy first single, “Nothin’ But Your Love.” “Those show me in a whole different light,” he says, “and I’ve been waiting on people to see me in those lights.”
Some of those songs, especially the soul-searching “Clearly,” also obliquely address the dose of fame and recognition that swirled around Ingram after he released his debut in 2019. Grammy nominations and wins followed, as did opening-act stints with the Rolling Stones (whom he didn’t get a chance to meet) and Vampire Weekend. But as Ingram has learned, like many before him, his dream came with a cost.
“The reason the album is named Hard Road is because a lot of times we show the glamor and glitziness of the road, but we never really talk about the bad stuff,” he says. “Since I acquired this little fame I have, there are some things that come with it that I had to deal with, such as the fakeness and people not really having your best interest in mind. When people see you’re successful, they try to latch on and have this entitled attitude of you owe them when you really don’t.”
How has he handled it? “I just tried to ignore it and focus on the music and keep a level head,” he says. “You have to realize that all of it is part of the game, as I said in ‘Clearly’: ‘Can’t always be sunshine/You get a little rain.’ You just have to keep going.”
