The Growing Legend of Marcus King
Written by Colin LaVaute and Mike Denehy | Photography by Colin LaVaute
I first became aware of Marcus King in 2015. It was at this time that producing events took up a larger chunk of my professional time. Mike Denehy (creator of the Pedaler’s Jamboree and owner of Off Track Events) and I had signed on to work with another company to help them create a cross-state bike ride and party unlike anything Missouri had seen. Each overnight stop presented us the opportunity to provide live entertainment that echoed the quality of what we provide at Ped Jam from year to year. It was a stacked lineup of world-class talent, but we had no idea what we had in store for us once we reached the overnight in Kirksville.
Mike has always had a penchant for booking amazing talent before they hit, but at this time, Marcus was merely a teenager. For what in retrospect was a meager $1,000, a teenage Marcus King and his band (some of which still play with him to this day) made their way across the country from South Carolina to play to a group of about one thousand exhausted bike riders that had seen every form of weather possible in the days leading up to this infamous night. Indeed this event broke me of most of the stressors that come with planning other parties thereafter. After guiding this adventurous crew across the state while weathering extreme heat, torrential downpours, tornadoes, and floods nothing much phased me after this event. But, to paint a more contextualized picture of this moment in time in which young Marcus King first blew our minds, I’m going to turn to Mike Denehy to spin the tale…
“So I heard about Marcus King from the D.C. area, from the Ben Miller Band. He was playing some shows solo and he posted that he had opened up for this kid that he was phenomenal and he posted a link to his website.
And I had an opening in Kirksville. It was going to be at the community center by the pool. And, you know, like he went out and like, $1,000 in the budget. I was going to call up and I called and Marcus answered the phone. And I think it must have been like his old home phone. Like one of those that's on the wall, because he was kind of picked it up and he's just like, ‘Hello?’ I told him all about the event and the play, and he's like, Yeah, it sounds cool. I'll talk to the band. We're going to practice tomorrow. And I got the phone call me up a couple of days later and he's like, Yeah, we're in.
After a week of crazy weather, we literally had a tornado roll through the night before, emergency services pulled me into their roving headquarters, and they said, ‘Hey, it's time you shut this party down. It is time for you guys to go home.’
And I was like, ‘alright,’ well, we've got tonight and we're heading out tomorrow. But we kept that show going. We knew we had something pretty amazing and we didn't want to pull the plug before that party was over. I took the stage and I announced that we had to shut it down. But, before stepping off the mic, I made a point of letting people know that there was an amazing new talent that was about to take the stage and if they did want to stick around, they were in for a memorable performance.
The Marcus King Band took the stage at that point and it was one of the best shows I think I've ever seen in my entire life. We all felt that it was like a life-changing experience for us. All of this while another round of storms began to roll through.”
Wet and wild times indeed. I echo Mike’s sentiments about Marcus’ performance that night. We knew that we were witnessing greatness. Even at that age, he had the same gravelly baritone that sounded wise beyond his years and he could shred with the best of them.
Watching Marcus’ career since then has been a source of great pleasure for both Mike and I. Every time Marcus and his band swing through town, we make a point of being there and marveling at how far he has come from that waterlogged evening at the municipal park in Kirksville, MO. At King’s most recent visit to The Blue Note, he hit the stage for the first time since releasing Young Blood, his 2022 album which this writer considers to be his best work yet. His second release produced by Dan Auerbach, Young Blood is the most authentic representation yet of what a Marcus King concert sounds like live. Vivacious, raucous, and brimming with world-class musicianship.
Like all of his sets, Marcus laid waste to The Blue Note stage with his Guitar God handling of each entry in the setlist. The people of Columbia were no doubt aware of what this still-young talent had to offer, as the show I attended sold out in short order, thus justifying a second appearance by Marcu and company at The Blue Note only days later. I did not attend the second set, but I have every bit of confidence that the same innate and timeless spark that we experienced in 2015 and every show since shone just as brightly as ever as the legend of Marcus King continues to grow with every passing appearance.
