There's little that Morgan Freeman hasn't done over the course of his seven decades in show business. He has won Oscars and Golden Globes, starred in countless films and Broadway plays, narrated documentaries, supported environmental causes and put his name to political campaigns. And now, a year after his ninetieth birthday, he opens up to music with an album, Morgan Freeman's Symphonic Blues Experience.
The album, twelve tracks edited by him (but the first also features his interpretation), is a journey through one hundred years of blues and sees the participation of Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo', Shemekia Copeland, Anthony Big A Sherrod, the Chineke! Orchestra, Lady Adrena and many others. It will be released on August 7, but right now you can hear Freeman and Taj Mahal reinterpret the Son House classic Death Letter Blues.
“I first heard the blues on my grandmother's porch in the Mississippi Delta, and it has never left me,” Freeman said in a statement. «Having Taj Mahal open this album with a cover of the Son House classic Death Letter Blues it's the perfect way to introduce some record. Releasing it on Juneteenth isn't just a symbolic gesture — it's the truth about where this music comes from and who created it. I hope people listen and remember.”
“This music was born from the same history commemorated during Juneteenth,” said the album's producer, Eric Meier. «Death Letter Blues is one of the most raw and honest pieces of songbook American, and hearing Taj Mahal inhabit it with a complete symphony behind it – recorded within the sacred walls of the Royal Studios and Abbey Road – is something revolutionary and unique. We are incredibly proud to present our album with this song.”
Three tour dates were scheduled to support the album, in Houston, Memphis and Gulfport, Mississippi.
Freeman, however, has no intention of abandoning his main job. He will continue to play the US Secretary of State in the Paramount+ series Lionessand recently narrated the Netflix documentary series The Dinosaurs.
Here is the tracklist of Morgan Freeman's Symphonic Blues Experience:
1. Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground – Morgan Freeman ft. Keith Johnson
2. Crossroads – Super Chikan
3. Death Letter Blues – Taj Mahal
4. Dust My Broom – Lady Adrena
5. The Thrill Is Gone – Alvin Youngblood Hart
6. Cadillac Assembly Line – Keb' Mo'
7. Somebody's Knockin' – Anthony Big A Sherrod
8. Traveling Riverside Blues – Shemekia Copeland
9. I'll Take You There – Tierinii Jackson ft. Stax Music Academy Choir
10. Love Me or Leave Me – Anthony Big A Sherrod
11. Someday – Anthony Big A Sherrod
12. I Lied To You – Keith Johnson
From Rolling Stone US
