Morgan Freeman And Eric Meier On ‘Symphonic Blues Experience’ Tour

Since 2001, actor and narrator Morgan Freeman has owned and operated Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, Mississippi, celebrating blues music in the birthplace of the artform.

Located just about a mile from the infamous crossroads at the intersection of Highways 61 and 49, where lore has it that legendary bluesman Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil, Ground Zero showcases the sound of blues artists young – like 26 year old phenom Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, who was born in Clarksdale – and old – Bobby Rush, 91.

While he was born in Memphis, Tennessee, later moving to places like Chicago, Illinois and Gary, Indiana, Freeman was raised in Charleston, Mississippi, about an hour northwest of Clarksdale in the Mississippi Delta region, where he discovered blues music.

“Well, my mother was a musician. And she played the piano. So, me and music were kind of intimate early on,” Freeman explained during a recent video call. “I don’t know when I first actually heard the blues – but I was no more than 5. I don’t know that it actually resonated with me – it was just sort of there. But I think by the time we got up to rock and roll, I knew where rock and roll came from.”

Freeman, 88, was born in June of 1937, a year before Johnson’s death at the infamous age of 27, about two years prior to the start of World War II and 14 years before Ike Turner’s “Rocket 88” began racing up the charts as arguably the first rock and roll single.

This summer, Freeman traces the evolution of the blues as part of “Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience,” a concert tour launching Friday, July 25, 2025 in San Francisco, California, crisscrossing North America into November.

The show itself features a live symphony orchestra backing a blues band on stage in each market in addition to a visual component narrated by Freeman tracing the unique path of the blues as it moves north out of the Delta through places like Memphis and into Chicago, where it was first electrified, as well as its impact on rock and roll, influencing British Invasion acts like The Beatles and Rolling Stones.

“This is kind of like any start up where you keep prototyping and piloting it but the general concept is remaining the same, which is, how do you take kind of the soulfulness and energy of blues music and pair it with kind of the refinement and gravitas of the symphony? It’s super hard to do,” said Ground Zero president and co-owner Eric Meier.

“What is music about? Rhythms,” added Freeman. “And classical music and blues music you’re able to synthesize. By that, I mean you’re able to bring the two together seamlessly. It’s surprising how well it works.”

On paper, adding blues to classical music doesn’t necessarily add up. Blues is driven by improvisation whereas classical is a far more precise, exacting sound. But on stage it does, with the live orchestra providing a cinematic backdrop that helps Freeman drive the narrative.

Following pilot performances in Savannah, Georgia, Dublin, Ireland and Salzburg, Austria, the “Symphonic Blues Experience” examines the roots of a distinctly American sound.

“Look, it’s storytelling, right? It’s emotion,” Meier explained. “And we’re very blessed to have our music director, Martin Gellner from Vienna,” he said, referencing the versatile composer who frequently collaborates with famed film score composer Hans Zimmer. “But the beauty of what Morgan is doing is really providing that backdrop of this 100 year journey. And, obviously, we’re doing some very cool photo imagery to accompany the storytelling that kind of helps you fill in the pieces,” Meier explained.

“When we did the Savannah venue, we didn’t have that. Now we’ve started and I think it adds a lot of depth to the exercise and to the event,” Freeman concurred. “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.”

For Freeman, this tour is an opportunity not to portray the experience of another but to detail his own while examining the story of a sound closely aligned with American history, one which grew out of field hollers in the south at places like Dockery Plantation, 45 minutes from Ground Zero Blues Club, where future blues artists like Johnson, Charley Patton and Howlin’ Wolf all worked.

Reembracing the blues was born out of a move back to Mississippi, where Freeman still lives today.

“I was living in New York. And I began to get ill. Concrete buildings, tall buildings – you were living in a cave. And that just began to get to me very, very viscerally,” he began. “On one of my trips back to visit my parents – I think it was 1986, might have been ‘83 – I realized that this was where I was most comfortable. Life was most agreeable for me,” said Freeman of making the move. “And that realization made me decide with my then wife that we would make our home here in Mississippi. A little town of Charleston where I was until I was 6 and a half years old. It’s sort of ancestral grounds. Well, Mississippi is anyway. But along with that came back this appreciation for the original music: and that’s the blues.”

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In Clarksdale, 40% of residents live below the poverty line. But embracing its blues roots has begun to help revitalize the town, with places like the crossroads and Ground Zero standing as legitimate tourist attractions, hallowed ground boasting visits from legendary rockers like Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant.

Kingfish was born there with contemporary blues artists like Ghalia Volt spending time there. Anthony “Big A” Sherrod, who performs on stage as part of the “Symphonic Blues Experience,” calls Clarksdale home and teaches music as part of the Delta Blues Museum’s blues and education program.

The Ground Zero Arts Foundation stands as the philanthropic arm of Freeman and Meier’s club, with a portion of proceeds from the “Symphonic Blues Experience” finding direct placement within the Clarksdale community, a critical element of the outing.

“It’s essential,” said Meier. “You look at Kingfish – clearly a child prodigy. But he learned his craft at the Delta Blues Museum and played on stage at our club at the ripe old age of 12 or 13. And people like Anthony Sherrod and others kind of helped teach him. If he didn’t have that exposure, I would imagine he’d be living a very different life at this point,” he said. “So, our goal is a portion of the proceeds. And we’ve got an album we’re going to release and it’s also to benefit the local artists through supportive services – which includes education. There’s healthcare needs and just basic business planning. And we want to make sure that we’re doing our best to support the artists and artist community.”

While a sister location has operated in Biloxi, Mississippi since 2022, Ground Zero Blues Club’s Clarksdale location will celebrate its 25th anniversary next year. Successfully navigating COVID while supporting artists via a series of livestreams, the club thrives today as an economic driver in the Delta region.

For Meier and Freeman, the goal at the heart of the “Symphonic Blues Experience” tour was simple.

“The reason we’re doing this is because it’s hard to get to Clarksdale a little bit. So, we kind of said, ‘We’re gonna come to you.’ And, fortunately, the symphony kind of becomes the vessel in which to tell the story of the blues here,” said Meier.

“Now I’m in the blues business at this late stage – partly because of just happening to be in the right place at the right time,” said Freeman with a smile. “Bill Luckett and I were working on getting the restaurant started across the street from where we were working and saw a young couple of backpackers. And Bill, being the social maven that he was, went out to talk to them,” said the actor, citing Luckett, the former Clarksdale mayor who partnered in Ground Zero until his death in 2021. “Well, they were obviously lost. And it turns out that they were looking for some place to hear blues music. They were in the Mississippi Delta in this storied place – well, we couldn’t tell them. So, that was a catalyst,” he explained.

“It’s all a music experience of America rooted in the blues,” said Morgan Freeman. “I think it’s absolutely a story of a people. And a lot of the music is anchored there,” he continued. “You’re listening to lament, sorrow, love lost, love won. Where am I going?” he explained. “Put that to music and it’s magic.”