Morgan Freeman can add record producer to his long list of accolades across his six-decade career, as the iconic actor is partnering with a collection of celebrated blues musicians to deliver a 12-song album that documents 100 years of the blues.
Freeman is both the producer and narrator on the project, titled Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience. The album will release Aug. 7 through Decca Records.
“Rooted in stories carried from West Africa to the American South, the blues became a testament to the unbroken human spirit, the sound of America’s past and present, and the heartbeat of a culture that refused to be forgotten,” Freeman said in a statement.
The actor tapped a mixture of legendary and more contemporary blues musicians for the project, including Taj Mahal, Keb’ Mo’ and Shemekia Copeland. The album starts with Blind Willie Johnson’s famed “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” and covers the whole history of the blues’ evolution from the Mississippi Delta region and beyond, with covers of songs like “The Thrill Is Gone” and “Traveling Riverside Blues,” among others.
The album concludes with a cover of the Oscar-nominated Sinners track “I Lied to You,” a fitting full-circle moment given that the film and its music helped reintroduce the mysticism of the blues to a much wider, younger mainstream audience last year.
