BETHLEHEM, Pa. — As a native of the Mississippi Delta, Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman said he naturally is a lifelong fan of blues music.
"This whole idea of the blues being America’s classical music, I heard that when I was a kid," Freeman — star of "Driving Miss Daisy," "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Million Dollar Baby" — said in a recent phone call from his Gulf Shores, Alabama, home.
"So of course [I] listened to it and know it and … was familiar with a lot of the performers of the blues, you know?"
Freeman even for nearly 25 years has co-owned Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, Mississippi, an iconic venue that helped grow blues guitarist Kingfish Ingram and others.
But it wasn't until business partner Eric Meier saw a show that paired hip-hop with a symphonic orchestra that Freeman said the two decided it was a way to expose a broader audience to the music he loved.
The culmination of that decision is Morgan Freeman's Symphonic Blues Experience, a show in which young blues musicians from Ground Zero Blues Club backed by a symphonic orchestra take the audience on a journey through the birth of the blues to its shaping of gospel, rock and more.
It also offers multimedia cinematic imagery, with Freeman's narration.
Morgan Freeman's Symphonic Blues Experience stops at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 12. The show is sold out, but requests are being taken for a waitlist at Zoellner's website or at the box office.Lehigh University's Zoellner Arts Center
Morgan Freeman's Symphonic Blues Experience stops at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 12, at Lehigh University's Zoellner Arts Center.
The show is sold out, but requests are being taken for a waitlist at Zoellner's website or at the box office at 610-758-2787.
"It’s really kind of a beautiful blend of entertainment education," said Meier, the show's executive producer, on the same phone call.
"So I suspect two things will happen from the audience: They’ll have a great time and they’ll learn something about this genre and really the importance of it in modern and contemporary music.”
Stellar acting career leads back to the blues
Freeman's acting career has stretched more than six decades, and includes more than 100 feature film roles, including in Academy Award winners such as "Unforgiven" and "Glory."
Freeman already had been nominated for three Academy Awards, a Tony Award and Grammy Award by the time he helped found Ground Zero Blues Club in 2001.
"It’s a great feeling that people enjoy the same thing that you can enjoy."Morgan Freeman
"We did it because we met a young couple in Clarksdale who were just strolling along the street," Morgan said.
"And Bill [attorney Bill Luckett, who also was a co-owner until his death in 2021] went out and accosted them and asked them what they were doing here, where they were from.
"And they said, ‘We’re looking for where we can listen to some blues.'"
Freeman said he and Luckett "realized it didn’t exist. We had blues players, but they didn’t have a steady venue. There were others, but they may or may not have a show this weekend."
"The opportunity came, just dropped in, about starting a venue for blues in Clarksdale. So Bill and I started Ground Zero, and the rest is history.”
The concept took off, and has helped build the careers of young blues players such as Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, a blues singer-guitarist who is preparing to release his fourth album.
Freeman said he takes great pride in what the "wildly successful" club has accomplished.
"Try to imagine anything you start, that you’re concerned with — how do I put this? — important to you," Freeman said.
"I guess if it gets over, your chest swells with pride. It’s a great feeling that people enjoy the same thing that you can enjoy."
A show that furthers the blues
Meier said the show he saw that mixed hip-hop with symphony was an Australian band in Seattle and gave him the idea to use the same concept with blues.
With Freeman and a third partner in Ground Zero — Memphis entertainment executive Howard Stovall — they "came up with the idea of using doing the same thing, putting blues music with a symphony orchestra behind it."
"So the three of us looked at each other and said, 'I think we’ve got something here,' which spawned up really launching this as a formal business the second half of last year."Executive Producer Eric Meier
For Morgan Freeman's Symphonic Blues Experience, they tapped frequent players at Ground Zero — starting with guitarist and vocalist Anthony "Big A" Sherrod and his band.
They include guitarist and vocalist Jacqueline “Jaxx” Nassar, drummer Lee Williams, vocalist Adrienne "Lady Adrena" Ervin, keyboardist Mark Yacovone, bassist Adrian "Rev Slim" Forrest and guitarist, vocalist and harmonica player Keith Johnson.
"I think maybe we used the most relevant. We have a young group; they played together quite a bit, so they were almost a natural," Freeman said.
"They play, I guess I could say, classic blues with inclusion of a symphony orchestra. The symphony orchestra isn’t playing blues. It’s playing what symphony orchestras play.
"And them converging works extremely well."
Meier expounds: "Basically there are three components. To Morgan’s point, it’s blues music by blues musicians supported by symphony, we have Morgan narrating the 100-year arc of the story starting in the 1930s, going into modern day [done cinematically], and then we have video story-telling accompanying us."
Freeman's narration was pre-recorded at the club, Meier said.
"We prototyped this in three cities — Savannah, Georgia; Dublin, Ireland; and then just outside of Salsburg, Austria — with three out of three successes," he said.
"So the three of us looked at each other and said, 'I think we’ve got something here,' which spawned up really launching this as a formal business the second half of last year.
“We’ve had great pickup in interest and wanted to come to Lehigh.”
'A love story to the blues'
The success of Morgan Freeman's Symphonic Blues Experience has only intensified the desire of the actor and his partners to help further the blues.
The show already has been recorded, with an album to soon be released, Meier said.
“We have a companion organization called Ground Zero Arts Foundation, which the whole purpose of that is to support the artist — whether its business planning or educational support or other things," he said.
“A portion of the proceeds of the album will go to that."
Freeman said, "These are primarily aimed at younger people, as Eric points out, the performers that we’re operating our show.”
The show recently played in Central Park in New York City, and has more than 20 dates before January in the United States and Canada, Meier said.
"We’ve had a number of blues artists coming out of the woodwork and approaching us, and say, ‘How can we be a part of this?’"Executive Producer Eric Meier
Meier said he has spoken to Ingram's manager "multiple times and Kingfish is very loyal to the clubs he’s been playing. He did New Year's Eve for Morgan; Al Green sang on stage and Kingfish played, as well.”
“Our hope is that he’ll be involved in this project in some capacity. He’s excited about it, supportive of it.
"We’ve had a number of blues artists coming out of the woodwork and approaching us, and say, ‘How can we be a part of this?’"
Freeman said he recently was in Jackson, Mississippi, for an event for his daughter, and three-time Grammy Award-winning blues singer Bobby Rush, who is 91, told him "he wants to do this with us. It’d be great.”
“There’s so many connections," Meier said.
"It was interesting: Our entertainment lawyer that we work with, she saw the show — she’s looked at the software image — and said, 'This is as much of a love story to the blues as anything.
"Very simple but elegant.”
Freeman replied, “Oh, man, well put.”
'One day at a time'
Freeman, at 88, still is very active in acting.
He had three films in 2023 and two — "My Friend Zoe" and "Gunner" — released last year.
He even has a new film, "Now You See Me: Now You Don't," in post-production, with a Nov. 14 release date.
"You know, I’m kind of old now. You know, years-wise. I don’t think I’m that old in my mind. Jesus, I hope not."Morgan Freeman
It's the third movie in the franchise, about a team of magicians who commit robberies during their performances and redistribute the stolen funds to their audiences.
"The group, called the Four Horsemen, they do incredible magic things," Freeman said. "And the first show, it was a success for the company and then we did the second show.
"That must have been a success for the company — I’m not privy to it, how much it makes. But it was enough to do a third.
“And in it, I play, I guess, I’m a master — somehow I’m connected to The Eye. The Eye is the all-seeing eye.
"And I never quite understood it, but I’m a guru in this. I do all kind of things and I have a house that’s built for magic — you can go into one room and never some out! Things like that.”
Freeman said that he now just takes "one day at a time."
"You know, I’m kind of old now," he said. "You know, years-wise. I don’t think I’m that old in my mind. Jesus, I hope not.
"But just one day at a time.”
