Photography courtesy of Ground Zero Blues Club
We spoke with Freeman and Eric Meier, one of the co-owners and partners in the Clarksdale, Mississippi Ground Zero Blues Club which has been nurturing talent and revitalizing the area since 2001, about how they brought the “Morgan Freeman's Symphonic Blues Experience” tour to life and where they hope to take it next.
Established in 2001, Ground Zero hosts more than 200 shows annually. The club has garnered significant attention and played a vital role in launching the careers of many emerging blues artists. The tour was conceived as a way to bring both the history of the genre and the current generation of performers to a wider audience.
“Not only have we figured out how to take the authenticity and rawness of the blues and merge it with the elegance of a symphony,” Meier says of the tour. “We can bring this experience to others that can't make it to Clarksdale.”
The show, which has been staged with partner symphonies throughout the United States and in Europe, is a unique fusion of symphonic grandeur with poignant sounds of the Mississippi Delta that charts the history of the blues. With a live appearance and multimedia narration, Freeman guides the audience through the Delta’s impact on both American and international music and culture, and its role in shaping genres including gospel, rock ’n’ roll and nearly every subsequent style of music.
“The blues is not just music. It is history wrapped in rhythm, the echoes of lives lived and lost, heartache and hope all tangled together. In the concert, we have recordings of me telling the whole 100-year sweep of the blues. It’s the grandparent of American music,” Freeman offers. “You think of the symphony orchestra and you don’t think of storytelling. It’s just classical music. Now, with the blues, it’s storytelling. Put those two together and I think what happens is that the blues is enhanced. It’s surprising how well it works.”
Following pilot performances in Savannah, Georgia, Dublin, Ireland and Salzburg, Austria, the pair, joined by music director Martin Gellner from Vienna—a dynamic composer who frequently collaborates with famed film score composer Hans Zimmer—began touring the country earlier this summer.
“I underestimated the importance of what we're doing from a cultural impact,” Meier admits. “We hear repeatedly that it's the best experience our audiences have had in a long time. So I think we've hit the mark and our hope is to be able to bring this experience to many more places around the country. It's an important story about the culture and what has happened, what is happening. The music is evolving.”
Meier says they see the potential for the project to evolve into an album or a documentary.
“We're still sorting through that,” he shares. “This is a living entity.”
In the meantime, Freeman has been enjoying the reactions from audiences and fans, who Meier says are eager to thank Freeman for his indelible performances over the years.
“I think it’s pretty darn cool,” Meier offers.
“It's pretty darn cool to me too,” Freeman counters before that trademark Cheshire cat grin, that has become part of his enduring image, sweeps across his face.
What he also finds cool is the response he has had from the Ground Zero Blues Club artists involved in the tour, many of whom are emerging artists and under 40—younger than he was at the time of his big break as an actor.
“What I get from each of them are hugs,” he reveals. “Heartfelt hugs. A lot of these people have not been far from Mississippi. Now they wind up going everywhere and singing, performing and getting paid. That's a huge step in some lives. So yeah, I get hugs. I know that's gratitude. I know that's what they are.”
The Ground Zero Arts Foundation stands as the philanthropic arm of Freeman and Meier’s club, with a portion of proceeds from the tour benefiting local artists through supportive services—which include access to education, healthcare and business resources within the Clarksdale community.
Visit symphonicblues.com and themahaffey.com for more information.
