Chesapeake Bay Events is pleased to announce that 14 year old Blues/Guitar prodigy “KINGFISH” has been added to the Sunday September 8th lineup of the 2013 Southern Maryland Blues Festival which is being held on September 7th and 8th at the Calvert County Fairgrounds in Barstow, Maryland. Christone “Kingfish” Ingram will be a featured guest of the Daryl Davis Band.
Kingfish was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi which has gained much notoriety as the birthplace of the Blues. It’s reputation is well known the world over for spawning such notable legends as Muddy Waters, Pinetop Perkins, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Gospel and Soul singer Sam Cooke, Ike Turner, and many others. The magical and legendary town of Clarksdale, where the Crossroads of Highway 61 and Highway 49 meet, has once again produced another Blues innovator
Christone “Kingfish” Ingram was born to Princess Pride Ingram and Christopher Ingram in 1999. Exposed to the rich Gospel music emanating from his family’s church, combined with the Blues he heard being played by musicians in his Delta neighborhood, and being a cousin to the great and legendary Country music singer, Charlie Pride, Kingfish became a natural sponge of musical talent.
At the tender age of 8, Kingfish began playing the drums. A year later at the age of 9, he took up the bass guitar. At the age of 11, he began playing lead guitar. By the age of 14, he had mastered all three instruments and has added vocals to his ever growing list of talents.
Kingfish’s guitar influences run the gamut of the Blues from the Delta Blues of Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters to the electric Blues of B.B. King, Albert King, and Freddie King, to the Rock Blues of Chuck Berry and Eric Gales and so many others. Surprisingly at such a young age, he can play just like his idols and mentors and possesses the additional ability to create a Blues sound entirely his own.
Even though he’s from the Delta, surrounded by all of its plantations and he travels Highway 49 and Highway 61 on a regular basis, unlike many of his musical predecessors from Mississippi, Kingfish never had to pick cotton or sell his soul to the devil at the infamous Crossroads. Yet, this child prodigy’s soul is possessed with the feeling, passion and fire of the much older men who created the most important genre of American music, the Blues.
Kingfish is a living phenomenon, soon destined to be a living legend!
About the festival:
The Southern Maryland Blues Festival is a two day festival featuring 12 national, international and local bands. There will be Arts, Crafts, Kids Activities, a variety of food, beer and craft beer tasting by local hosted breweries, wine and wine tasting hosted by local wineries. We fully expect this first year event to become a Southern Maryland tradition gaining notoriety on a national level.
The festival will benefit the less fortunate of Southern Maryland through a contribution of ALL net proceeds to End Hunger in Calvert County.