Morgan Freeman has released a blues album, marking a surprise career pivot for the 89-year-old Oscar winner, who currently stars in Taylor Sheridan's series Lioness.
The album, titled Morgan Freeman's Symphonic Blues Experience, came out on Friday, August 7, via the Decca Records website. It becomes available for streaming and digital download starting August 14.
Freeman both narrated and produced the 12-song record, which follows 100 years of blues history. The album features musicians including Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo', Lawrence "Boo" Mitchell and the Chineke! Orchestra.
"I heard the blues for the first time on my grandmother's porch in the Mississippi Delta, and it has never left me," Freeman said in a statement, according to Rolling Stone. "Having Taj Mahal kick off this album with a cover of Son House's classic Death Letter Blues strikes the perfect tone for the introduction of this album."
Death Letter Blues released on Juneteenth
The album's cover of Death Letter Blues was released on Juneteenth. Freeman said the timing "is not just symbolic - it is the truth of where this music comes from and who made it. I hope people listen and remember."
The song was first released in 1965 and recorded by Delta blues musician Son House. Other tracks on the LP include Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground and Cadillac Assembly Line.
A three-date tour supporting the album began on August 7 with a show in Houston. Additional stops include a performance in Memphis on September 26 and a concert in Gulfport, Mississippi, on October 17. The Daily Mail said it had reached out to Freeman's representatives for comment but had not heard back.
Freeman on the roots of the blues
"The blues. It's come from the most basic, visceral expression of humanity," Freeman said during an interview with CBS Mornings. "It comes from a field holler. African Americans, those people whose closer connected to the origins in Africa, they have their own way of working and it's a rhythm thing."
Freeman is also a co-owner of the blues club Ground Zero in Mississippi. Speaking last year at his Chautauqua Lecture Series, according to the Chautauqua Daily, he said he was raised primarily in Mississippi and that the best of his childhood was spent in the Delta town of Greenwood.
"My association with the blues is really not an association at all," the Million Dollar Baby star said. "It's just there in the air. You start hearing it at a very young age, because there are a lot of guys going around plucking on guitars and singing sad songs." He added that the blues began with African Americans working in the fields, who developed what he called a work holler.
Freeman has appeared on other songs in the past. He was featured on B.o.B.'s 2012 song Bombs Away and served as narrator on Metro Boomin and 21 Savage's 2020 album Savage Mode II.
Freeman's role in Lioness
Freeman recently reprised his role as Edwin Mullins in the Paramount+ series Lioness, whose third season premiered on August 2. The spy thriller, created by Taylor Sheridan, also stars Nicole Kidman, Zoe Saldana and Michael Kelly.
Freeman told The New York Times earlier this month that Sheridan's writing "has to do more with the human experience, what people are actually going through, emotionally, in a lot of cases."
He also discussed how he chooses which projects to take on. "If somebody offers you a job, it's very nice if they're offering you also an exciting script, but in reality, two or three things come into play," he told the outlet. "What are they going to pay you? If they're going to pay you enough, then you overlook some of the glitches in the script that happen to be there."
He added, "Sometimes you can mention things that are in the script that don't quite work out for you and by and large, that gets worked out."
Freeman is also known for his roles in The Shawshank Redemption, Driving Miss Daisy and Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy.
