Freeman’s Fusion Fascination: Morgan Freeman names his favourite band
The musical and cinematic worlds overlap handsomely, with one influencing and seasoning the other since the emergence of sound films in 1927. Back then, rudimentary films were often inspired by the contemporary jazz age, while musicians and composers began competing for scores and featured tracks. Two decades later, Morgan Freeman was born into a rapidly changing America.
Freeman lived through World War II as a child but came to his cultural wits in the late 1940s and ’50s, a period of rejuvenation and defiance. The youngster found belonging in Black music and gained confidence through the 1950s as the Civil Rights Movement burgeoned. He had pursued a passion for acting since the age of nine when he won a drama competition in his home state of Mississippi and finally broke through on Broadway in 1968.
As an African-American actor, Freeman was inspired greatly by Sidney Poitier but has also cited Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper and Humphrey Bogart as pivotal influences. However, like many fellow actors, his tastes and talents transcend cinema. The influence of blues icons like Muddy Waters and B.B. King can be felt in some of Freeman’s more emotional acting roles.
In a past interview with 60 Minutes, Freeman discussed his unbound passion for the blues and explained why the genre is so essential and transcendent. “I think this is the music that comes directly from the soul,” he said. “It’s just wrenched out of you. It’s palpable that they’re singing from deep.”
In 2001, Freeman put his money where his heart is, opening the blues club Ground Zero in Clarksdale, Mississippi. As the name suggests, the club is situated in the genre’s historical epicentre, near the famed Delta Blues Museum. “We’re going to run the blues into the ground until two o’clock in the morning,” Freeman told ABC News shortly after establishing the venue in 2001. “And we’re going to have an in-house band, and of course, we’re going to have guest groups come whenever.”
It is safe to say that Freeman’s music taste is very much grounded in Delta Blues, but jazz also had a place in his heart from a young age. As a wartime child living in Chicago, the aspiring thespian first fell in love with contemporary pop bands, who brought a theatrical edge to jazz convention.
Speaking to the Chicago Sun-Times in 2017, Freeman remembered some of the first artists to steal his heart during the big band era. “It was during the 1940s, World War II,” he said. “So, I was familiar with the music stars of that time: Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, and groups like that.”
By the time Freeman made his first major strides as an actor, rock ‘n’ roll had taken full control of the charts, with his beloved blues providing the foundation for eminent bands like The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. No doubt Freeman enjoyed spinning some of the Stones’ early albums, but when it comes to late 20th-century pop, one band stood proud of all others.
Today, Freeman describes his taste in music as “pretty much eclectic,” but it seems his grounding in blues and jazz still paves the way. In a 2013 AMA session, when asked to name his favourite band of all time, Freeman replied, “I like Steely Dan!”
Steely Dan rose to prominence in the early 1970s and, in the space of ten years, released seven studio albums that crowned them as the kings of jazz fusion. Experimental yet loose and accessible, the core duo Walter Becker and Donald Fagen showed their disdain for contemporary pop-rock music by bringing their jazz virtuosity to the genre. With Becker’s blues-infused guitar licks and Fagen’s jazzy keyboard command, it’s easy to understand the appeal to Morgan Freeman.
Listen to ‘Only A Fool Would Say That’ from Steely Dan’s debut album, Can’t Buy A Thill, below.
