The Marcus King Band: The Marcus King Band (2LP) [FANTASY]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set comes in a gatefold jacket, mastered and cut at Sterling Sound. It was the band's first album for Fantasy and reached No. 2 on the Billboard Blues Albums chart.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Gatefold jacket
• Mastered and cut at Sterling Sound

About the album

At 20, most guitarists are still working out which pedals they need. Marcus King was leading his own band, writing the songs, singing them in a voice well beyond his years and getting Warren Haynes to produce his second album. They cut it at Carriage House Studios in Stamford, Connecticut, with engineer Jim Scott.

King plays electric, acoustic, pedal steel and lap steel, with Matt Jennings on keys and organ, Jack Ryan on drums, Stephen Campbell on bass, and Dean Mitchell and Justin Johnson on horns. "Devil's Land" and "Jealous Man" bring the Southern rock grit, Kofi Burbridge's flute drifts through "Rita Is Gone" and "Thespian Espionage," and "Plant Your Corn Early" and "Radio Soldier" swing between soul and jam-band blues. Todd Smallie sits in on bass for "The Man You Didn't Know," "Guitar in My Hands" is as close to a mission statement as King gets, and Haynes picks up a guitar himself on "Virginia."

The horns, the flute and the pedal steel give it a range well beyond a straight blues-rock record. Having two former Allman Brothers guitarists sign off on your sound is, we'd say, a fairly decent reference.

Also at Kops: more Marcus King on vinyl · browse Blues

Tracklist

Listen

On Fantasy, the 2016 album.