On March 25th, it was one of those famous, midwestern, super windy evenings out in the suburbs of St. Louis, when a night of delta blues and topnotch guitar playing was enjoyed by a wonderfully diverse packed house of fans at The Factory. This group of music lovers had gathered together to see the one and only Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and join him as he transported everyone down to the marshes of northern Mississippi.
The opener for the evening was the powerful and vibrant Maggie Rose. She’s a country music singer-songwriter originally from Maryland, yet currently based out of the epicenter for modern southern music — Nashville, Tennessee. Gifted with a genuinely epic voice, this little ball of energy is exactly what is needed during these insane times we live in. She has a skill for bringing everyone together to just enjoy some damn good music. Her band was insanely talented and it was plain to see that they had come to town with a tight, well-rehearsed grip on the show they perform. Still floating along on the success of her 2021 release, Have a Seat, the strut and sass Maggie Rose has onstage is well-earned and much-deserved. When you record your album amongst the divine and blessed halls of FAME Studios in Muscles Shoals, Alabama, I guess it sort of earns you a certain level of respect. Often drifting more along the lines of a soul singer, this absolutely beautiful blend of Joss Stone and Carrie Underwood — with maybe even a little sprinkling of some Dusty Springfield tossed in there — powers through a demanding merge of blues, funk, gospel, soul and rock ’n’ roll with a dash of Americana that makes it all an extremely worthwhile evening.
Luckily, that wasn’t where the evening stopped…
Still to come was Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, a young man whose talents as a blues musician have been able to make the all-time greats wake up and pay attention. If you are unaware, Kingfish is a 22-year-old guitarist and songwriter from Clarksdale, Mississippi (a small town just a few hours south of Memphis that just happens to be the home to what else, the Delta Blues Museum). Now, before we go too much further, it is important to understand the exact skill level I am talking about here. When I say this man could go toe-to-toe with the all-time greats, I mean it. I’m talking about Prince, Hendrix, Chuck Berry, even B.B. King himself, this guy could rival any one of them and easily hold his own if he were fortunate enough to share a stage with any of them. I mean, he literally walked off stage and journeyed around the entire venue, balcony included, in what seemed like a never-ending guitar solo. Pausing in certain spots to let the crowd around him absorb the entirety of what they were witnessing. The whole venture probably took close to 10 minutes, but it was 10 minutes no one was complaining about. Kingfish is rapidly making a name for himself throughout the whole of the music industry, but specifically in the world of blues and old school rock’n’roll. He is demonstrating first hand the true, rudimentary understanding he has for his chosen genre of music and is here to prove to the whole world he is here to stay.
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