Album Review – The Marcus King Band’s “Darling Blue”

Southern rock (#562) and Country Soul (#577) on the Country DDS.

If you wanted to be all buzzy and clickbaity about it, you could proclaim “Marcus King goes country!” or “Marcus King releases a country album!” But that’s not really what’s going on here. It is the moment where the sounds and collaborations from this modern guitar god veer more country than any other time in his past, which is welcome news to many discerning country fans. In truth though, this really is an album about home. And whenever you sing about home, country sounds and sentiments are never too far behind.

Marcus King’s music has always been comfort food for the soul, and a long line has formed of performers wanting to collaborate with him in country music and well beyond, which Marcus been more than happy to indulge. It seems like he’s everywhere these days in music and entertainment because everyone wants to get a little bit of that greasy, soulful sound on whatever they have cooking.

On his new album Darling Blue, Marcus King teams up with Kaitlin Butts and Jamey Johnson for a song, Billy Strings for another, and Jesse Welles also makes an appearance. Also making appearances are steel guitar, fiddle, and banjo, played by the likes of Paul Franklin and Billy Contreras. Marcus King writes much of the material himself, though country songwriter Hillary Lindsey appears in the credits, as does Cameron Duddy and Jess Carson of Midland. It may not be a country record, but Darling Blue is distinctly a Nashville record.

The song “Honky Tonk Hell” became the quickest cut from Marcus King’s catalog to make it to a million spins, in part because it combines his old school soul and Southern rock thing with an up-tempo Jerry Reed country kick. The next song on the album “Heartlands” makes use of an excellent double entendre like only the greatest country songs can, and is driven by the fiddle. “Die Alone” is a little acoustic back porch mountain music tune. And you’re surprised near the end of “Levi’s & Goodbyes” that fiddle once again makes a surprise appearance.

But this is not a country album. It’s a Marcus King album, and the first he co-credits with the Marcus King Band since early on in his career. The balance of the album is that soulful southern rock R&B sound sometimes embellished with horns that you’re used to hearing from him. If you want to hear Marcus King tap into that sweaty FAME Studios sound, make sure you don’t skip over the sensational “No Room For Blue.”

One way you can approach this 14 track album is to consider the first half the more country and acoustic side, with the opening songs “On & On” and “Here Today” featuring Kaitlin Butts and Jamey Johnson surprising you with their country textures. Then the second half is what we’ve come to expect from Marcus King. One complaint that carries over from previous projects is how you don’t get a whole lot of Marcus King guitar work on this album, even though that’s really his calling card.

Produced by Eddie Spear who’s known for working with Sierra Farrell, and for being one of the few producers Zach Bryan ever agreed to work with, Darling Blue is more of a vocal album than it is anything else. This isn’t a knock necessarily, since Marcus has really mastered his falsetto. But you do crave a bit more stink from the guitars since this is so important to the Marcus King experience live. This is also more of a songwriter album, with the storytelling indicative of country coming up often.

Yet more than anything else, Darling Blue is a love letter to Marcus King’s hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, and the woman he’s chosen to spend the rest of his life with. Commitment, gratefulness, adulation, and maturation through his sobriety is the story this soulful, Southern rock album tells, while utilizing country music influences to give it that inviting down home feel.

8/10

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