Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram brings award-winning blues, genre's future to Brooklyn Bowl

The blues is nearly 200 years old and arguably so beloved of a genre that the notion of it requiring innovation could easily be balked at.

That's the intrigue at the crux of the Grammy-winning rise of Clarksdale, Mississippi-native Christone "Kingfish" Ingram.

At Nashville's Brooklyn Bowl on Wednesday evening, the genre's standards, Kingfish's prized work of late and then his peerless handling of his signature purple Fender Kingfish Telecaster Mississippi Night version guitar highlighted a breadth of both nuanced and studied understanding of blues history and how both have informed the past, present and future of popular culture.

He's a self-proclaimed "old soul," but also perpetually listening for what he refers to as "modern elements" that can be blended into his sound. Currently, his "pop-style guitars" and "hip-hop flavor" have, alongside an avowed love of Jimi Hendrix and mentorship by artists like Buddy Guy, led to his "relatable" songs like "Empty Promises," "Long Distance Woman" and "Outside of This Town" now being heard on a global scale via his September-released "Live in London" album.

Intriguing as well to the conversation about blues and innovation is that Kingfish's success at 24 is, on some level, no different than Guy recording at Chess Records or Hendrix working with the Isley Brothers, Arthur Lee and Little Richard at the same age. All three were already well along the way to iconic stardom and looking to expand existing boundaries.

"All they ever did was do the same thing that I'm doing — continuing to pave an inspirational way by following a (iconic) lineage," Kingfish tells The Tennessean prior to his show.

Kingfish could be preoccupied with basking in the mystique of that lineage. Or, as he was on Wednesday evening, he could be more focused on the work that is yielded from sharing such rarefied air.

His opener for his current run of shows is 21-year-old Houstonian Matthias Lattin, who recently won first place at the International Blues Challenge in the band category and was awarded Best Guitarist at the competition.

Whereas Kingfish's style plays between classically Chicago, Memphis and Mississippi-style finesse and raw power underpinned by soul, Lattin's work is deeply imbued with jazzier, soulful funk.

Lattin's version of Houston-born and Los Angeles-developed pioneer Johnny "Guitar" Watson's "A Real Mother for Ya" played true to the original's stylings. However, as he dug deeper into it, licks appeared diving the song into works by Curtis Mayfield and Sly and the Family Stone.

It highlighted the notion that alongside Kingfish, there's likely an entire universe of players — similar to the early 1960s — getting inspired by each other and beginning a fearlessly exploratory relationship with 200 years of blues music. The deeper and broader they search, while still making original material along the way, could yield stunningly and unexpectedly vibrant innovation in the genre.

For Kingfish, having already achieved what he describes as "shredding guitar hero" status by 24 allows him the ability to — as he has via now frequent trips to Los Angeles to record — mature into a lyrical and melody-driven song-crafter more than a jam-friendly performer with a top-tier live show.

"(Whereas) I used to be focused on (virtuoso-style) guitar-playing, I'm now making more songs that reflect playing licks that matter — jazzier playing inspired by Wes Montgomery, Charlie Parker, Charlie Christian, bebop players like Grant Green," Kingfish adds.

"I also want to showcase my voice more in a combination of Hendrix-meets-Barry White."

Lush, orchestral ballads by way of cosmic, ethereal soul?

Listening to songs like "Where Does the Hate Come From?" and "Midnight Heat" shows that his potential in this realm can be actualized.

That isn't to say, though, that he didn't walk into both levels of the crowd at Brooklyn Bowl and play both a prolonged solo in the lower tier and in the venue's upper balcony, perform a scintillating version of B.B. King's "Sweet Sixteen" that included Kingfish playing his guitar with his mouth.

There's a delicate balance between giving the people what they want and delivering what they need that Kingfish is still learning how to navigate.

That work is currently aided by keyboardist Deshawn "D'Vibes" Alexander, plus Paul Rogers on bass and Chris Black on drums. Having a rhythm section like Black and Rogers, who can lock into grooves that create synergy with whatever genre Kingfish is meandering into during his performances, is necessary. Be they too jazzy, funky, soulful, or classic hip-hop inspired, they overwhelm Kingfish's magic. However, they've discovered the right measure to accentuate a phenomenal live show.

On his cover of blues guitarist Michael Burks' 2008-released "Empty Promises," remaining familiar to the song by a Delta blues-inspired star with work alongside Johnnie Taylor and O. V. Wright leads to prolonged improvisational sections to not mirror, but revere, his legacy.

Insofar as D'Vibes, he comes from a Baton Rouge jump blues and R&B legacy that combines with a love of P-Funk and whimsical stylings that found him closing out the event by seamlessly genre-jumping from the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" to Nelly's "Hot in Herre," Blackstreet's "Don't Leave Me," chords familiar to Warren G and Nate Dogg's "Regulate" and Michael McDonald's "I Keep Forgetting," plus Hendrix's "Hey Joe."

Watching the constant interplay between the two onstage added an element of inventive whimsy to Kingfish's overall performance.

There's something about a band that can switch from having the feel of Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain" to Willie Mitchell's "Groovin'" and then get a crowd that, on the surface, seems too cool to dance to want to get loose to commercially popular hip-hop classics.

Overall, an evening with Kingfish reaffirms everything one loves about the blues and opens the portal to understanding how it safely and sustainably innovates itself.

Kingfish is also 24 and already a nine-time Blues Music Awards recipient with victories for Best Guitarist, Contemporary Blues Album of the Year and Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year.

This success — alongside his recent ascension to Grammy-winning acclaim — cements him on a standard-redefining journey following behind other blues artists for whom the number of awards they receive pale by comparison to the reach of their legacy.

"Some people may be getting carried away in their assessments of my talent," Kingfish says. "However, time has and will continue to prove that I will be one of the ones who will go down in the history books."

Undaunted by his acclaim, he offers a humble accounting for the vibe of his live show and what inspires him to maintain its ever-growing global appeal.

"Blues is a feeling, but you don't want it to feel like BS and showing that you're not practicing your craft and taking it seriously."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Christone "Kingfish" Ingram brings blues to Nashville's Brooklyn Bowl