Marcus King

The young South Carolina blues ace invites TG into his world of tone…

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Before his soundcheck and rig tour at Islington Assembly Hall, Marcus King is giving TG his guide to the one thing every guitarist feels like they need to work on: feel. It’s something that, despite his years, the 22-year-old American knows an awful lot about and the advice he prescribes is telling indeed.

“When it comes to note choices, it all comes down to the attitude of how you play them,” he explains. “That’s exactly what Miles Davis said: ‘Twenty per cent is the note… and the other 80 per cent is the motherfucker playing it!’ That’s something I agree with wholeheartedly. Put your heart and soul in there through vibrato, scratches, attack, whatever you feel!

“I guess I do play fast sometimes,” he adds. “But mainly I love players like Leslie West, Duane Allman and Derek Trucks – who took a lot of influence from Middle Eastern music. He studied with Ali Akbar Khan in San Francisco and learned a lot from that. The fluidity in Derek’s slide playing is incredible to see and he’s become a good friend of mine. As for my approach to chords, that comes from the whole Steely Dan/ Donald Fagen thing, where you’re playing the 7#9 without playing the third. You are suggesting it’s a minor chord but leaving a lot of ambiguity. That really helps whoever is improvising, the soloist or singer is given a much wider range of sounds to explore… it can open doors!”

GUITARS

1 GIBSON ES-345