The Marcus King Band The Marcus King Band

• 1Aint Nothin Wrong With That03:48
• 2Devils Land05:10
• 3Rita Is Gone04:26
• 4Self-Hatred05:34
• 5Jealous Man04:35
• 6The Man You Didnt Know04:41
• 7Plant Your Corn Early05:08
• 8Radio Soldier04:53
• 9Guitar In My Hands02:54
• 10Thespian Espionage05:34
• 11Virginia06:35
• 12Sorry Bout Your Lover03:26
• 13The Mystery Of Mr. Eads01:45
• Total Runtime58:29

Info for The Marcus King Band

Songwriter. Guitarist. Singer. Bandleader. At only 20 years of age, Marcus King’s dazzling musical ability is on full display throughout The Marcus King Band, the young phenom’s 2nd full-length LP and first for Fantasy Records, due out October 7th, 2016. The album was produced by one of King's long time heroes Warren Haynes, who expertly wraps the band's muscular live energy around a rising young songwriter of unusual clarity and depth.

The album highlights King’s gorgeous, rough-hewn vocals, soaring guitar work and heartfelt songs. The masterful group interplay is the result of a year spent playing in ever-larger venues and festivals across the country and building upon the critical success of their debut album, 2015’s Soul Insight. Virtually unknown a year ago, the hard working outfit jammed with George Clinton at SXSW, performed at Mountain Jam with special guest Warren Haynes, rocked the Austin City Limits Festival and sold out shows nation-wide.

Written entirely on the road and recorded during a series of sessions at Carriage House Studios in Stamford, CT, the album features Marcus King on lead vocals and guitar, Jack Ryan on drums and percussion, Stephen Campbell on bass, Matt Jennings on keys and organ, Dean Mitchell on saxophone, and Justin Johnson on trumpet, trombone and backing vocals. The album also includes a number of the band’s mentors and collaborators, including Derek Trucks (who plays guitar on 'Self-Hatred') and Warren Haynes, who in addition to producing the album, adds his trademark slide guitar on 'Virginia.'

Haynes has played a key role as mentor and friend to King, witnessing firsthand his remarkable growth in a short span of time. 'Marcus is the first player I’ve heard since Derek Trucks to play with the maturity of a musician well beyond his age,' Haynes says. 'He’s very much influenced by the blues, but also by jazz, rock, soul music, and any timeless genre of music. You can hear the influences, but it all comes through him in his own unique way. He has one of those voices that instantly draws you in, and his guitar playing is an extension of his voice and vice versa.”

Marcus King, guitar, vocals
Jack Ryan, drums
Stephen Campbell, bass
Justin Johnson, trumpet, trombone, background vocals, tambourine
Matt Jennings, organ, keyboards
Dean Mitchell, saxophones

Marcus King
Young songwriter Marcus King’s debut album, Soul Insight, out now via Evil Teen Records, displays his stunning command of rock, blues, psychedelia, funk, soul and improvisation — all with a distinctly Southern musical accent. It also brings the 19-year-old a step closer to his musical destiny.

“I guess I knew I was born to play guitar when I was seven,” King says. “That’s when I got my first electric guitar, and while all the other kids were outside playing, I’d be inside on that guitar. When I got in trouble in school, my daddy said I could choose between a spanking and getting my guitar taken away for a week. I took the spanking.”

Soul Insight is the explosive result of that dedication, magnified by another dozen years and more than a thousand nights playing in clubs — initially alongside his father, bluesman Marvin King — since the age of 11, just two years before Marcus formed his own group and stepped into the role of leader.

King’s talents and trajectory have already led his band across the country, and he’s opening shows for the Foo Fighters, Johnny Winter and, of course, Gov’t Mule and its leader, Warren Haynes. King emerged from his native Greenville, South Carolina, and its sister city Asheville, North Carolina, where Haynes was born. King hit Haynes’ radar thanks to the reputation the young artist has earned with his incendiary live performances. In December 2014, King and his band were invited to perform as part of Haynes’ annual Christmas Jam benefit, which occurs in Asheville’s U.S. Cellular Center Arena, the prestigious club the Orange Peel and other rooms around the musician-and-artist-heavy mountain city. A few months before that, the Marcus King Band had recorded Soul Insight at the Compound Studio, just south of Los Angeles in Signal Hill, California.

“Recording the album was a really organic experience,” says King, who also produced Soul Insight. “Whether I wrote the song or, in the case of the instrumentals, we developed them together as a band, we’d played them long enough so we were really comfortable with the material. And we lived at the studio while we were recording, so it was really laid back and comfortable. That let me relax and play my best.”

How good is King’s best? Good enough that Haynes picked up the album for his Evil Teen label and has signed on to produce its follow-up.

The proof of King’s developing virtuosity and vision is in the tracks. Soul Insight opens with “Always,” a riff-driven rocker about a spurned lover that brings King’s big burnished tone to the fore. “Boone” displays King’s acoustic side and reveals his talents as an arranger, opening with his singing slide resonator guitar and voice, and building to an explosive crescendo that echoes the influence of his own guitar heroes, including Haynes and his Allman Brothers Band foil Derek Trucks, and Jimi Hendrix. Soul Insight’s first single and album’s closing song, “I Won’t Be Here,” also echoes the Allman’s in King’s gorgeous, arcing vocal melody and the blend of King’s acoustic and electric guitars as he sings about the bittersweet experience of moving past an old romance into a new relationship.

“Warren and Derek were big influences on me,” King relates, citing the 2003 Allman Brothers’ album Hittin’ the Note and Trucks’ Grammy-winning Already Free as particularly inspiring. “That’s the level I aspire to with my own music,” King adds.

The instrumental “Fraudulent Waffle” channels those aspirations in a daring five-minute journey into the elegant, expansive jam world that was the Allmans’ forte and remains a hallmark of Gov’t Mule. King double tracks his instrument to emulate the Allmans’ signature twin guitar harmonies and then launches into a solo that embraces elements of jazz and blues before an exploratory duet with the album’s organist Alex Abercrombie.

Of course, King’s singing is every bit as potent as the sweet and surly voices of his guitars — a mix of his main Gibson SG, a Les Paul Deluxe and an ES-345 plugged into a pair of Fender Super Reverb amps run in stereo and teased by only one effect: a Tube Screamer overdrive pedal. King’s warm, soaring tenor reflects a variety of soul and blues greats he considers fuel for his songwriting and performing that includes Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Ray Lamontagne and Haynes.

But King’s first musical well was his father, a guitarist and singer whose Marvin King & the Blues Revival remains a staple of the Carolina music scene.

“My father is still my biggest musical hero,” King says. “I’d see him coming home in the early morning hours after gigs when I was a little kid, and I thought my dad had the coolest job ever. I wanted to carry on the lineage. His father played fiddle and guitar, and his grandfather played fiddle. So when he took me to play my first gigs with him when I was about 11, it already felt completely natural.”

“Natural” and “organic” are words King uses often. He puts a premium on writing songs that share his perspective on the world and in letting arrangements come to life in rehearsals and on the stage, evolving as the group plays them.

King says he’s already recorded more than two-dozen varied demos for Soul Insight’s follow-up. “The band’s current line-up is really perfect for me,” King explains. “With a trumpet and trombone we can have a really interesting instrumental color along with the guitar. Having an organ lets me get into the zone of classic jazz and blues. And with a percussionist and a drummer, we can do more elaborate rhythms and explore Latin music. So I have all I need to really take the music anywhere.

“Off stage, I’m a very introverted person,” he continues. “Making music is how I speak my mind and let people see the way I view the world — as a big, rich and colorful place with so much in it and so much to offer. And with Soul Insight, I think me and my band have come out kickin’, showing everybody who wants to listen what I’m all about.”

Booklet for The Marcus King Band