TaurusEmerald, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The headline got my attention: “Morgan Freeman Has No Plans To Retire.” The voice of God and presidents is nearly 90. “He is the go-to narrator for your favorite documentarian,” says Jonathan Abrams, the award-winning New York Times Culture Journalist, in a wonderful interview published last Tuesday.
I know Morgan as a founder of a fabulous live blues club in Clarksdale, Mississippi, called Ground Zero. It’s a little over an hour’s drive from my family roots in Greenville, MS. Morgan says, “Blues music is, No. 1, America’s bottom-line heritage, [which] belongs to the Black population of this country. We created it.”
Steve Bott from Los Angeles, USA, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Deisenbe, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Abrams asked finally, “What is it that keeps driving you to make art?” Freeman replied, “Don’t let the old man in. So, keep working. If you can get out of bed and don’t fall down when you do it, then you just count your blessings and keep moving.”
Words to live by, and what a blessing!
P.S. Morgan Freeman’s top three films: The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Million Dollar Baby (2004 – won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), Driving Miss Daisy (1989 – my favorite)