Morgan Freeman is expanding his celebrated career beyond film and television with a deeply personal project rooted in the music of his Mississippi childhood. The 89-year-old actor narrated and produced “Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience,” a 12-track album tracing approximately 100 years of blues history. The Oscar winner’s latest venture is not simply a celebrity experiment with a different medium. Freeman has maintained a lifelong connection to blues music and is a co-owner of the Ground Zero Blues Club in Mississippi.
Freeman’s interest in the blues began long before he became one of Hollywood’s most recognizable performers. “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 obtained by Rolling Stone. That early memory became the foundation for an album featuring musicians Taj Mahal, Keb’ Mo’ and Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell, along with the Chineke! Orchestra.
The collection opens with Taj Mahal performing a cover of “Death Letter Blues,” which Delta blues musician Son House originally recorded in 1965. “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,” Freeman explained.
The cover was released on Juneteenth, a decision that Freeman emphasized held historical importance. He 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.” Other songs featured on the album include “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” and “Cadillac Assembly Line.”
The Actor Explains Why The Blues Remains So Powerful
During an appearance on “CBS Mornings,” Freeman described the blues as a musical form created from fundamental human experiences. “The blues. It’s come from the most basic, visceral expression of humanity,” he said. “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 previously discussed that connection during the 2025 Chautauqua Lecture Series, recalling how the music surrounded him while he was growing up. “I was raised primarily in Mississippi with a few excursions outside, but the best of my growing up was spent in Mississippi in the Delta, Greenwood, Mississippi, to be exact,” he said.
For Freeman, blues music was not something he consciously discovered or decided to study. It was already embedded in the environment around him. “My association with the blues is really not an association at all,” the “Million Dollar Baby” star explained. “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, “The blues has this beginning with African Americans because working in the fields, they had a work holler, as it were.”
‘Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience’ Heads On Tour
“Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience” was released through Decca Records on Friday, August 7. The album is scheduled to become available for streaming and digital download on August 14. Its release is also being supported by a limited three-date concert run.
The tour began in Houston on August 7, the same day the physical album was released. It will continue with a performance in Memphis on September 26, then travel to Gulfport, Mississippi, on October 17. The final stop brings the project back to Freeman’s home state, reinforcing the personal and geographical connection at the heart of the album.
Morgan Freeman Is No Stranger To The Music Industry
Although the symphonic blues collection represents a significant expansion of Freeman’s work in music, it is not his first appearance on a recording. The actor was featured on B.o.B.’s 2012 track “Bombs Away.” He later brought his distinctive voice to Metro Boomin and 21 Savage’s 2020 album “Savage Mode II,” on which he served as a narrator.
His new project gives him a considerably larger creative role, allowing him to help shape an entire collection around the history and evolution of a genre that has followed him throughout his life. The album also connects naturally to Freeman’s involvement with Ground Zero Blues Club. Located in Mississippi, the venue reflects his ongoing effort to support and celebrate blues music beyond his work in Hollywood.
The Oscar Winner Is Still Busy On Screen
Freeman has not abandoned acting while pursuing his latest musical endeavor.
He recently returned as Edwin Mullins in the third season of Taylor Sheridan’s Paramount+ spy thriller “Lioness,” which premiered August 2.
The series also stars Zoe Saldaña, Nicole Kidman and Michael Kelly.
