“Imagine the rhythm of hands striking soil, the aching backs, the muffled cries — that’s where the story of the blues begins,” Morgan Freeman narrates at the outset of his Symphonic Blues Experience project. “This is music that gave voice to a people, to their pain, their hope and their resilience… It’s memory [and] history wrapped in rhythm.”
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Arguably the most enduring voice of American cinema, Morgan Freeman has spent the past seven decades charting a historic career that has traversed genres, enraptured generations and inspired a litany of younger talent. Now, Freeman, 89, is previewing his 90th rotation around the Sun with a bold step into a completely different medium: music.
This isn’t the first time Freeman has narrated an album. Before Symphonic Blues, he also lent his iconic voice to 21 Savage’s Savage Mode II in 2020 and Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains in 2022. Back in 2012, he narrated the intro to B.o.B.’s “Bombs Away,” the first track on the Grammy-nominated rapper’s sophomore studio album, Strange Clouds. The film legend has also appeared in several stage musicals throughout his storied career, including Purlie, The Gospel at Colonus, and Hello, Dolly!
On Aug. 14, the Academy Award winner released Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience, a succinct 12-track set that traces the 100-year story of blues music, complete with the addition of the Chineke! Orchestra. Freeman narrates the LP, which he co-produced alongside Eric Meier, one of his fellow co-owners of The Ground Zero Blues Club. Located in the heart of the Mississippi Delta in Clarksdale — yes, the same town in which Ryan Coogler’s Sinners was set — Ground Zero regularly features homegrown blues talent, with many such artists appearing on Symphonic Blues, including vocalist/guitarist Anthony “Big A” Sherrod and drummer Lee Williams.
After overhearing a couple inquiring about locations to hear blues music in Clarksdale, Freeman opened Ground Zero in May 2001, alongside then-Mayor Bill Luckett and Howard Stovall. Meier joined Ground Zero as an investor in 2018 — around a decade after he became a co-owner of Seattle’s newly renovated Crocodile Cafe — and assumed a greater role in 2021 after Luckett’s passing. His previous experience stewarding live music venues, coupled with an Australian vacation that exposed him to hip-hop group Hilltop Hoods’ collaborative, symphonic projects, resulted in Meier sitting with Freeman and Howard, wondering, “Could we do the same thing with blues?”
The trio prototyped the project with a series of 2025 live shows in Savannah, Dublin and Salzburg, and the success of those performances proved “we had something real,” says Meier. Freeman helped handpick the illustrious mélange of artists on Symphonic Blues, equally drawing from his childhood memories growing up in the Delta, his lifelong love of the blues and the impressive roster of Ground Zero regulars.
Grammy-winning contemporary blues stars Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ dazzle on project, as does Grammy-nominated American roots vocalist Shemeika Copeland. Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell helped oversee the album, which was recorded at his iconic Royal Studios in Memphis, Tenn. The Chineke! Orchestra — Europe’s leading majority-Black and ethnically diverse ensemble — delivered their contributions under the guidance of music director Martin Gellner at London’s legendary Abbey Road Studios.
“I know for a fact when Ryan was doing scouting, he came down to the club,” says Meier. “And let’s just say the barn [scene], you could argue he’s got a little tinge of Ground Zero in there. We started this effort before Sinners came out, but it was really nice to have the opportunity to host Warner Bros., Ryan, Ludwig [Göransson] and others for a little listening party at the club last year. It was a cool full circle moment.”
Beginning with Blind Willie Johnson’s harrowing “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,” Symphonic Blues breezes through the Devil-deal-making mythology of Robert Johnson (“Crossroads”), the genre’s influence on modern rock stylings (“Dust My Broom”) and the mass industrialization of labor and Detroit’s emergence as a Black American mecca (“Cadillac Assembly Line”). The project then shifts its attention to the impact of British rockers (“Traveling Riverside Blues”) and blues music’s evolution into soul-pop (“I’ll Take You There”), before concluding with the defining song from the Grammy-winning Sinners soundtrack (“I Lied to You”). Freeman’s narration, somehow simultaneously regal and familial, ties the LP together with spoken word ruminations on the historical, psychological and spiritual power of blues music.
Though Freeman does not sing on Symphonic Blues, Meier hints that there is footage somewhere of the Grammy nominee — he earned a best spoken word album for children nod in 1996 for Follow the Drinkin’ Gourd — hitting a few notes. Beginning in July 2025, Freeman & Co. supported Symphonic Blues with a run of live shows that included a homecoming stop for Meier at his alma mater Duke University in Durham, N.C. Two 2026 dates remain on the trek (Memphis and Gulfport, Miss.), leaving two more chances to experience a century of blues music history throught the eyes and ears of Morgan Freeman.
Below, Freeman and Meier chat with Billboard about the importance of passing down blues history, the recording of Symphonic Blues, and what makes the Oscar winner say “yes” to a role offer after all these years.
What do you remember feeling the first time you heard the blues? Do any of the tracks on this album evoke a similar feeling?
Morgan Freeman: I don’t remember what I felt the first time I heard the blues. I’m not sure I can even tell you, Kyle, when was the first time I actually heard the blues. I grew up in the Mississippi Delta [in] my early childhood, and that was back in the early 40s. It was a time of hooch and guys sitting on front porches with a mason jar full of moonshine. Maybe one of them would have a guitar. That was probably my intro to the blues.
Eric Meier: [The blues were] kind of background to me; it was not front and center. I grew up in the Bay Area, then I spent a lot of time in the Pacific Northwest — [where I] got exposed to Robert Cray — [and then] Austin, [where I got into] Stevie Ray Vaughan at Antone’s. And B.B. King was pervasive. [The blues] didn’t really hit me on the head until I went to Clarksdale and got exposed to the epicenter. It was so darn good that I dove deeper, and then you realize just how influential it’s been for all genres. The storytelling aspect is what really intrigued me.
Take me to the very first time you two met before we get to Eric becoming a partner of Ground Zero.
Meier: We’ll make sure it’s not NSFW. [Laughs.] It was at the Bayou Bend that I was told I had to meet [Morgan] as part of the chance to work with [him] and Bill [Luckett] and Howard [Stovall]. It was the test.
Freeman: Clarity moment here, Kyle. The Bayou Bend is a golf course where we play, and we had this little house we gathered in after sessions.
Meier: It’s a place where you really appreciate the joke tellers of the Mississippi Delta, of which Morgan is on that auspicious list. I think he wanted to know if I knew who he was, and I guess I passed.
Mr. Freeman, you’ve described the blues as “America’s music.” What do you mean by that?
Freeman: It’s my feeling that [the blues] started in the American South. Its basic locale would have been field work. The blues is a lament. It’s a cry not for help, but just understanding. This is my situation, and I’m not asking you for help, and I’m not asking the Lord for help; I’m just stating the situation here. That’s as far as it goes.
How did you strike the balance between preserving the authenticity of the blues with showcasing newer orchestral arrangements?
Meier: I’d say the credit goes to Martin [Gellner] and [Lawrence] “Boo” [Mitchell]. Martin was also our music director for the show, and he understands how to do crossover [music]. We didn’t want to dilute this thing. We wanted to make sure this is a blues album with the added gravitas of a symphony. And we made sure to [recruit other] artists who understood what this project is all about.
The album proceeds also go to our Ground Zero Arts Foundation to make sure we’re reinvesting in the Delta, so the next generation of artists can make sure that they can do what they love, which is developing and playing blues music.
Why did you choose these particular songs to tell the 100-year story of the blues?
Meier: It was iterative. Two of the co-producers, Nick Talbot and Alina Scalora, and I sat down and cherry-picked songs. We started the album with Blind Willie Johnson [“Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground”], who I think people would contend as one of the forefathers of this genre. We take the 1930s and go forward 100 years. We wanted to tell the story of this music starting [in the fields] and then evolving with the workforce migration out of the Delta to places like Chicago and Detroit.
Then we pay homage to the British rockers and come back to the Delta. We have a couple of [contemporary originals] from some Delta artists and then close out with Sinners [“I Lied to You”], so all the credit in the world goes to Ryan Coogler and Ludwig [Göransson]. Keb’ Mo’ was perfect for “Cadillac Assembly Line” and Taj Mahal was also the perfect artist for “Death Letter Blues.”
What was the most difficult record to perfect?
Meier: “I’ll Take You There” was tough [in terms of] getting the right music and the best harmony from the chorus. The guitar on “I Lied to You” was also difficult, so we brought in Luther Dickinson, and he nailed it. It’s a very complicated piece to play on guitar even though it’s seemingly simple. “Someday,” Anthony Sherrod’s song, has a cool Disney-esque opening, and that was a challenging mix.
Mr. Freeman, you are no stranger to narrating albums. What was different about this experience in terms of narrating a blues record versus a hip-hop record?
Freeman: I guess it’s homegrown. I fully understand it. It’s visceral for me.
Did you not want to sing a little bit on the record?
Freeman: No, I’m an actor. [Chuckles.] I stay in my lane. They do try to push me over, because I’ve done musicals on stage, but now my lane is acting. [When asked to narrate], I say, “Yeah, absolutely,” but singing, ehhh.
Meier: Wait a minute, now! Morgan does sing on our show, just a little Easter egg for you there. That is something that we have recorded at Ground Zero.
Where are you hearing and seeing and feeling the blues today?
Freeman: America’s music starts with the Blues and marches all the way up to jazz and hip-hop. It’s almost an unbroken line, and if you look around the world, particularly in Japan, they’re doing rap. And they know where they got it from.
Mr. Freeman, you’ve also described this project as “a necessity.” What are you seeing in the world around you that has put the call on your heart to champion this art form?
Freeman: The blues was the first time America heard itself. That statement is one of the real truths of music. The blues are so deep into the roots of the country itself that you can’t ignore it.
Do you guys have room on your shelves for a Grammy or two?
Freeman: Room on the shelf… I might have some right there. [Laughs.]
Meier: We have indeed submitted this album for Grammy consideration.
What makes you say yes to a role offer these days, Mr. Freeman?
Freeman: At this point, I like to think I’ve almost always looked for a meaningful story, a good script, and a part that resonates with me. But there have been many times when I’ve just listened to the jingle of money and said, “Okay, yeah, let’s go.”
Which role or character do you think shaped you most as an individual?
Freeman: There might have been two: Driving Miss Daisy and Street Smart.
Why those two?
I got an Academy Award nomination [for Street Smart] for playing a pimp!
How else can we continue to preserve the blues for this next generation of listeners, both in America and worldwide?
Meier: It starts with a great product, however the heck you define that. And we’ve strived to do that with our show and with this album. Secondarily, it’s awareness because it’s such a noisy environment today. The third thing is to properly capitalize so things don’t fall flat. And, of course, making sure we’ve got ways to finance projects like this [in the future].
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