5 Records With Marcus King

“This is an important record because you can feel the energy of the live show. Outside of seeing my father and my grandfather perform live, I was able to really feel the energy of a crowd from this record. Later I found out that was because Tom Dowd, Duane Allman, and Bill Graham all really wanted to capture the energy of the room.

“So this was recorded in 1971, and you can really feel the community that the crowd had. Everybody was there to hear this band, which was at the forefront of a revolution and countercultures and integration in the South and all these things, so it was a really special record. It represented a lot more than just damn fine music. But it’s a special record for me and my dad, and it didn’t age one day from when my dad brought it home.”

“Aretha Live at Fillmore West is a really special record because it also encapsulates the idea of a live show and what it should be. I’ve never really been interested in hearing a song exactly [how it sounds] on the record. I want to hear it at least, I don’t know, five or six clicks faster. Me and my drummer are always fighting because I want everything to be really, really fast. 

“If you listen to the way that ‘Respect’ starts on this record, it’s lightning speed. And it makes you buckle in for the rest of the ride. Her vocal performance on that record is insane, too. Ray Charles sits in on the end of the show. 

“And Aretha Franklin’s backing band, she’s got Bernard Purdie, Cornell Dupree, Billy Preston on organ, and Aretha’s playing the Fender Rhodes piano. She’s got King Curtis and The Memphis Horns. This is probably months before King Curtis was killed in the streets of New York. You get to hear him really blowing, and I’ve always found a kinship between Aretha’s voice and King Curtis.”

“I think half of this was recorded down in Florida, and I think they brought a lot of the musicians from Florida up to New York because Aretha and Rick Hall were butting heads at the time. So they cut the rest of it at Atlantic Records in New York City. But at any rate, they brought a lot of the swampers up with them, and Duane Allman was a swamper at the time, so this record is incredible.

“It has her version of ‘Son of a Preacher Man,’ and her version of ‘Eleanor Rigby,’ which is one of the greatest songs ever. Her version of ‘The Weight’ has a really wonderful Allman intro on it. And I mean her singing on it, it’s just unmatched still.

“There’s a moment on the record called ‘It Ain’t Fair’ that still hits me as many times as I’ve heard it. I lose track of where King Curtis’ horn starts, and where Dwayne’s guitar starts. They’re all sonically playing in this same range. So if you’re an admirer of tenor saxophones and slide guitar like I am, this is a record for you.”

“This was a really special record for me. I feel like it was the kind of record I’d always throw on. And I still do. And in the corner of it, my great Dane chewed the gatefold, but it’s still fine. It’s the first record I bought with my own money when I was 11.

“It’s one that I always had in constant rotation, and ‘Too Rolling Stoned’ is just like, it’s exemplary. He almost took the Hendrix tone and banded upon it, if one could be so bold. He also had a very moody and spooky vocal approach, but very bluesy.”

“As a person and as a musician, two records that really kind of impacted me around the same time were Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. It helped me understand the true genius of Brian Wilson, and getting to learn about Carol Kaye and the rest of the Wrecking Crew out there in LA.

“At the same time, I also got King Crimson‘s In The Court of The Crimson King. I listened to that record so many times. The musicianship on both of these records and the writing and the arrangements on both of those albums, I think, could stand next to one another.”