Christone "Kingfish" Ingram was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, on January 19, 1999, into a family where music was a serious pursuit: his mother, Princess Pride, was a first cousin of country pioneer Charley Pride. He grew up participating in church music, and at about five his father showed him a PBS documentary on Muddy Waters and promised a trip to the local Delta Blues Museum. There, in the museum's arts program and the annual Pinetop Perkins Workshop, veteran mentors formally passed the tradition down, and Bill Perry gave him the nickname Kingfish. He started on drums at six, moved to bass at eleven, and only then found the guitar, a path that explains the percussive attack and deep groove in his playing today.

This episode follows his rapid ascent from middle-school gigs at Red's Lounge and Ground Zero Blues Club to a 2014 White Hous ...