Morgan Freeman Enters 2027 Grammys Race With Time-Traveling ‘Symphonic Blues Experience’ Album: ‘The Blues Was the First Time America Heard Itself’

“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.” Related Raphael Saadiq Talks ‘Sinners,’ ‘Cowboy Carter’ and Being ‘Chosen to Raise the Bar’ ‘Sinners’ Made Oscars History.

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Moses Sumney Talks Spinning Music Out of Vengeance for His ‘Is God Is’ Score, Teases New Album: ‘The Most Ambitious Work I’ve Ever Made’ 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.