We decided to dedicate this #WhoDatWednesday to the man known as Kingfish because of his rockin' guitar skills and ability to influence kids around the world. Kingfish is known as the prodigy of blues music and if you've ever heard him play, you know why.
Christone Ingram is a young man from Clarksdale, Mississippi. Christone originally took an interest in the blues when his father showed him a PBS documentary about Muddy Waters, and promised they would go to the Delta Blues Museum. He started playing drums at age six and by the time he was eleven he was playing bass and then slowly moved to guitar. The name "Kingfish"comes from a nickname his given to him by a school teacher .Christone wanting to be different from the other kids at his school is what ultimately drove him into practicing blues music.
"They really thought it was funny, cause it was like 'Man you young but you listen to that old, sad stuff.' I’m like, 'Man, I ain’t really like that, I’m listening more for a culture thing, you know? This is history. This birthed what you guys listen to today, because you know rap is nothing but the blues grandchild.'"
When Christone was fifteen local news outlets discovered him, and soon after the national outlets followed. He began to receive offers to perform as well as a few custom guitars. Christone started to perform local gigs around his hometown while he was only in seventh grade. Kingfish has made an appearance on the Rachael Ray Show and the Steve Harvey show.
“It’s apart of my culture, and you don’t see too many young black kids that are into it. The blues is our history, our culture, so it’s something that we need to embrace and that we need to learn about, so I just wanted to keep my history going."
In November 2014, Kingifsh performed as part of the Delta Blues Museum band for Michelle Obama at the White House.
If you're still not amazed by the story of Kingfish, have a listen to Kingfish's debut album Kingfish which was produced by the three-time Grammy award winning musician Tom Hambridge. This album became #1 on the The Billboard Blues Chart!
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