With these souls and rock ’n’ roll icons as his touchstone, King cultivated a style all his own. Those were people I was trying to get my guitar to sound like.” Like Bob Seger- just people with really interesting voices. These singers inspired the hell out of me. “So, I did everything I could to make my guitar sound like Aretha Franklin or Janis Joplin or Tina Turner, Bobby Womack, David Ruffin. “I wanted to find my own source, my own well to pull inspiration from,” he says of his guitar playing. King set out to become the guitar player that the world hadn’t heard yet.
“I think that was always something that was encouraged, was to discover your own path,” he says about his family’s support. It wasn’t too long, though, before King was itching to find his voice and his own path through the wonderful world of strummin’ and singin’. “My family was really wonderful with their support and guidance,” King tells American Songwriter about the early years.
And at 8 years old, King performed on stage with his father. So, the guitar naturally fell in King’s lap when he was a wee lad. King’s father, Marvin King, was a well-known blues guitarist, and his grandfather was a regionally adored musician in his own right. Growing up in Greenville, South Carolina, King was introduced to music through his family. He’s felt what it was like to be the youngest guitar player in the room-one young enough that he couldn’t drink at the bars where he was playing. But he does make the distinction that now he’s “just a guitar player” rather than a “young guitar player.” This distinction wouldn’t necessarily occur to most artists, but King has been around music for as long as he can remember. Marcus King turned 26 years old in March, which certainly “isn’t very old” according to King and by most accounts.
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