TAMPA, Fla. — Morgan Freeman is on his way back to Pinellas County. Not to star in another movie about Winter the dolphin — although he told the Tampa Bay Times that he enjoyed his time here filming the 2011 movie “Dolphin Tale” and its 2014 sequel.

One of Freeman’s favorite things inspired his upcoming trip to Florida: the blues.

The actor, producer and occasional “voice of God” is coming to St. Petersburg Thursday for “Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience,” a night of Mississippi Delta Blues at the Mahaffey Theater. The Florida Orchestra will team up with musicians from Clarksdale, Mississippi-based Ground Zero Blues Club, which Freeman co-founded in 2001. Freeman himself will narrate the show and trace the history of the genre.

“The blues is probably the oldest music in America ... and its nascence was during slavery,” Freeman said during a Zoom interview with the Times and a Ground Zero Blues Club co-owner, Eric Meier. “It’s just a way of working, you know: Set up a rhythm for whatever you’re doing, and it goes faster and better. That’s really all that was about and just segued into what we have now.”

The blues, Freeman noted, bleeds into hip-hop, soul, jazz, rock and gospel. His voice and video footage will accompany the music, creating an immersive voyage through history.

“I’ve done live theater a lot,” Freeman said. “This is kind of like it.”

Freeman, 88, grew up in the era of rock and roll. But the seeds of his blues fascination were planted during his childhood in Mississippi.

“We didn’t have a record player when I was a kid. We were kind of below the line on incomes,” Freeman said. “But in my neighborhood, when I grew up in Greenwood, if you walked down the street, you heard music because people had their radios on and turned up so they could hear from the porch.”

Freeman was always “musically inclined and musically involved,” stacking his school schedule with drama, glee club and band. He even played the saxophone.

“By the time I graduated from high school, it was a foregone conclusion that eventually I would be in show business,” Freeman said, noting that his graduation picture was accompanied by a quote that predicted his future acting career.

As he grew older, his appreciation for the blues deepened. One day in 2001, he was hanging out in Clarksdale, Mississippi, with his friend and late business partner Bill Luckett. While scoping out the area for a restaurant venture, Luckett spotted two backpackers wandering around.

They asked if he knew a spot where they could hear some blues music. Luckett, who later served as mayor of Clarksdale from 2013 to 2017, couldn’t think of a place to send them.

“We decided to do something about that,” said Freeman, who founded the club with Luckett and partner Howard Stovall. “We found a building and started putting in what we considered to be a modern-style juke joint. The address of the building was on Zero Blues Alley. So there we were, Ground Zero already.”

The club has hosted artists ranging from Willie Nelson and Robert Plant to Clarksdale staples like James “Super Chikan” Johnson and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.

Ryan Coogler’s 2025 horror film “Sinners” — which ushered in a resurgence of Delta blues popularity after shattering box office records earlier this year — even took inspiration from Ground Zero.

“The movie takes place in Clarksdale. Ryan Coogler’s juke joint in the movie is Ground Zero,” Meier said. “I mean, he visited multiple times beforehand, and obviously [the club in the film] is a barn outside of town. But you can draw parallels when you see it.”

Ground Zero even hosted a welcome party for the film, featuring Coogler, the cast and crew.

“The president of Warner Brothers was there... and acknowledged what we’re doing, and I think they’re very appreciative of what we’re doing now with the Symphonic Blues,” Meier said. “The club benefits the community, you know. And heck, the state of Mississippi and Memphis are supportive of the tour, as is Clarksdale.”

Meier noted that the tour coming to St. Pete supports the Ground Zero Arts Foundation, a nonprofit that helps local artists “through everything from healthcare to financial planning to education.”

“Without the musicians, there would be no music tourism, frankly, in the Delta,” he said. “We want to make sure that as we benefit from the tour, that we can take care of the musicians as well.”

If you go: Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience

Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience, which “blends the raw, soulful sounds of Mississippi Delta Blues with the grandeur of the symphony orchestra,” comes to the Mahaffey Theater at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 25. Tickets range from $50 to $130 and can be purchased at themahaffey.com. ​

Learn more about Ground Zero Blues Club at groundzerobluesclub.com. Find out about the Ground Zero Arts Foundation at gzaf.org.

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