IT’S GOOD TO BE THE KING The Marcus King Interview
by Michael Buffalo Smith The first time I ever saw Marcus King
perform, he was playing with his dad, Upstate SC guitar hero Marvin King. At the time I was living in Greenville and working for a music and entertainment publication, so we were al- ways going to shows. I have fond memories of King family shows, even before the young gui- tar prodigy came along. But when I saw him play the first time, I got the same premonition I had received when I saw Derek Trucks at Al’s Pumphouse in Greenville when he was 12. I turned to my wife and said, “this kid is going to the top.” Sure, it was cliche, but it was and is true. Marcus released a very good indie
album and his reputation for red hot live shows began to grow exponentially. The next thing we knew, he had been taken under the wing of Warren Haynes, undoubtedly the best place the young guitar slinger could even dream of being. Warren, he of Gov’t Mule, The Allman Brothers Band, and The Dead to name a few of his past jobs, produced a hot new album on The Marcus King Band, and they were off and running. We recently spoke with Marcus about
his music and future plans.
How old were you when you played your first professional show? My first gig was when I was eight years old with the King Family Review. The whole fam- ily was there. (Laughs)
Oh yeah, I saw the family play a few times when we were doing EDGE Mag- azine in Greenville in 1991 or 92. Yeah that's when it was really pumping, the King Family Review, around late 80’s or early 90’s.
Right we went somewhere up in the mountains and saw all the whole family playing outdoors, it was so good. Yeah, I got old tapes of it man, that was un- fortunately one of the last gigs my grandfa- ther did, and was one of my first gigs I ever played. I was blessed to be able to have my grandfather there for one of my first gigs. I mean, he was still with us up until the time I was about thirteen to lend amazing advice all the time. But you know he couldn’t really play
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