Marcus Malone & The Motor City Hustlers - Interstate 75

AW! HUH!  WHERE'S THE ONE?
Get ready to work up a cold sweat in the company of Marcus Malone & The Motor City Hustlers, a collaboration by Malone and Dan Smith of The Noisettes that channels the soul and funk heyday of Detroit, Memphis and James Brown.  Yes sir, this here is a brand new bag full of old-style grooves to make you get offa that thing and get on the good foot.  As it were, so to speak.
Interstate 75 is bookended by the funk-orientated offerings ‘Ain’t No Telling’ and ‘Temperature Rising’, and boy do they work a treat.  ‘Ain’t No Telling’ is all twisting and turning guitar over

Dan Smith and Marcus Malone dressed to do The Hustle

skipping, tripping drums, creating a cool vibe warmed up by swells and bursts of horns, while Malone – mostly known as a blues-rock exponent – nails the soulful vocal vibe like he was born to it.  Which after all, given the guy hails from Detroit, he pretty much was.  Oh yeah, and there’s some focused guitar sizzle too, as the icing on the cake.  The closing ‘Temperature Rising’, meanwhile, lives up to its title by starting cool but gradually getting worked up over some social commentary, with occasional clavinet bonking added to its bippety-bopping groove, with a molten sax solo giving way to some thrusting bass that propels a squelching guitar solo. At which point it's worth saying that most of the instrumental work here - and especially the supple, funkadelic bass'n'drums - is down to Smith, aided and abetted by the Vanguard horns.
There’s more funkiness along the way too, in the form of ‘Can’t Take The Fight’ and ‘Other Side Of The River’.  The former has bumpin’ an’ slidin’ bass well to the fore, over a deliciously hip-loosening rhythm, with added pizzazz courtesy of some horn punctuation, intermittent sprinkles of guitar, and some falsetto scat singing that gives way to an easy-going sax solo.  And on ‘ . . . River’ there’s still more of that terrific funky drummer thang going on, alongside twitching, slinky bass and sunnily strummed guitar.  Meantime Malone proclaims “Gonna wind it up, like a sex machine,” en route to some lip-smacking bass playing that bounces teasingly around steely, reverb-assisted guitiar licks.
But it’s not all superbadness in intent.  Interviewing Malone years ago, he spoke about coming up with material “with this Otis Redding vibe, like really high-powered soul”, and Otis sure as hell springs to mind with ‘Can’t Make It’ and its “oh-na-na, na-na-na-na” refrain, although initially it’s laid back, focusing on just Malone’s voice plus drums’n’bass.  But while the song leans heavily on its hook, it’s a damn good hook, and there are still some needle-sharp guitar filigrees from Smith to earn bonus marks.
‘Good Lovin’ Angel’ is similarly sweet soul music that could have its roots in Wilson Pickett, a simple enough song that still packs plenty of detail into three and a half minutes, while Malone sings about “My Mona Lisa, my Salvador Dali” – though hopefully the latter doesn’t mean his baby has a face like a melted clock.  Meanwhile the title track ‘Interstate 75’ makes hay out of a wonderful, ‘Knock On Wood’-like groove, decorated with some fidgety guitar lines, and horn exclamation marks point up the title.  There’s a steely little guitar break too, and a backbone-slipping shift in rhythm to underpin a classy bridge.
Malone and Smith demonstrate that they know how to take it down a notch into more romantic territory too, most especially with ‘Hurt Walks Out Of The Door’, which carries echoes of ‘Tracks Of My Tears’, except with Marcus making more like David Ruffin than Smokey Robinson.  It’s a track the soul-aficionado in Stevie Van Zandt would be proud of.  And ‘Never Gonna Leave You’ is also an aching torch song, with Malone’s vocal very much at its heart, underlined by some soulful backing vocals.
Interstate 75 isn’t a complicated album.  It isn’t any kind of genre-crashing innovation either.  What it is, is a niftily crafted homage to classic, floor-filling soul and R’n’B sounds from days gone by.  Sometimes, happily, nostalgia really is what it used to be.
 
Interstate 75 is out now on Ramrock Red Records, and can be ordered here.

Black Pearl - Black Pearl

If two out of three ain’t bad, then three out of four must be pretty good, right?  Which I reckon is a pretty fair assessment of Black Pearl.  This new collaboration between singer and guitarist Marcus Malone, ex-Wishbone Ash guitarist Muddy Manninen, and songwriter/blues deejay/promoter Pete Feenstra scores on several fronts, namely Malone’s soulful vocals, Manninen’s arrangements and guitar, and Feenstra’s often intriguing lyrics.  What it could do

Marcus Malone rockin' the soul

with though, is stronger melodies on several songs.
When they get it right, as on the opening ‘Angel Town’ for example, and the recent single ‘Price
On Love’, this is pretty tasty, sophisticated fare.  ‘Angel Town’ features weeping slide guitar from Manninen in the intro and beneath the chorus, while Malone does justice to an atmospheric tale of life in LA. It’s set to a steady tempo, and harmonised backing vocals build a semi-epic feel in readiness for Manninen’s sweeping solo.  Meanwhile ‘Price On Love’ is a dreamy reverie on love – as in you can’t put a price on it – that comes over like Hall & Oates, or maybe Toto having a stab at laid back funkiness.  Feenstra comes up with some decent lines, about being “one push short of a shove” and “dancing like a Roman candle”, and the chorus is sneakily earworm-like.
‘Cheap Perfume’ has a brighter tone, and sweeter slide fills, producing an AOR vibe that’s more tasteful than the lyrics about a less than elegant night on the town.  Malone is on the money vocally again – the soul dimension of the material is meat and drink to him – and Manninen comes up trumps with a twinkling, almost banjo-esque solo.  A cavalcade of intertwining guitar parts, variously rolling, stuttering and sparkling, create admirable depth on ‘Natural Light’ to go with robust drumming, matched by a satisfying melody that includes a decent hook.  And the rockier, funkier, quirkier ‘Luxury Girl’ conjures up a catchy arrangement,with a snappier rhythm section and some Morse Code guitar backing, even if the tune and lyrics are less ear-catching.
Smooth grooves and easy-going funkiness are the order of the day on a few other tracks where

Muddy Manninen contemplating guitar grooves

the melody could be stronger, like the drifting, loping ‘Delivery Man’, the dreamy ‘Handmade Pearl’ (adorned by more appealing slide commentary from Manninen), and the deeper groove of ‘She Knows Every Move’, with its cinematic lyric set to a slightly discordant melody enhanced by clinks and clanks of percussion and spells of eerie keys.
They get good with a couple of Latin-tinged outings.  The funky strut of ‘Mexican Romance’ leans towards the Eagles in rock mode, then benefits from a Latin touch to its chorus, before some jazzy twists and turns in the bridge lead the way into a swinging guitar solo.  And on the closing ‘With My Baby By My Side’ hints of Hispanic grow into the middle eight and then the twitching, funky solo, before a good, more purposefully Latin-rhythmed outro.  The slightly off-kilter melody is maybe meant to bring a surreal haze to the lyric about some born-to-run couple, and even if it doesn’t quite cut it, there’s still a convincing vibe – a true romance duo in their roof-down rag-top car, rolling down some Southern highway with the breeze in their hair.
Black Pearl feels like a bit of a throwback to the 70s and 80s at times, and if the past is another country then this album’s locale would be a California where Steely Dan are working on studio tans, and hot shot musos get together on sophisticated AOR grooves.  Sure, it could do with handful of livelier melodies and hooks, but there are always other ingredients in the mix to spice up this sunny, funky, literate platter.

Black Pearl is released by Redline Records, via Cadiz, on 22 April, and can be ordered here.

Quickies - Malone Sibun, Naked Gypsy Queens, and Ritchie Dave Porter & Debra Susan

On your marks and get set folks, for a quick sprint through a selection of two current EPs and a single.
 
Malone Sibun – Ashes To Dust EP

It’s two years since the duo of Marcus Malone and Innes Sibun released their first album Come Together, and now they’re back with a four-song EP knocking out more of their earthy brand of blues-rock.
‘Makin’ It’ opens up with a rat-a-tat drum intro, setting up a shuffling rhythm to go with a booty-shaking bass groove from the ubiquitous Roger Inniss, rocking organ, and bright and bopping

Malone and Sibun scan the horizon for that confounded bridge

rhythm guitar.  All of which is the platform not just for Malone’s trademark sassy’n’soulful vocal, but for some yowling, FX-heavy guitar breaks from (I assume) Sibun.
‘Ashes To Dust’ itself features a nagging, stuck-needle riff combined with more eye-popping guitar licks around the verse.  It’s the precursor to a slower, grander chorus draped in swathes of organ from Moz Gamble, while Malone goes for an epically framed romantic lyric, all “winds of change,” “the future is burning stars,” and, of course, “ashes to dust”.
Their take on Willie Dixon’s ‘Evil’ doesn’t carry Howlin’ Wolf’s air of lurking menace, but it’s still a rip-snorting affair built on clattering drums and a Zeppish stop-start stairway of a riff, while Malone agonises about relationship devilry.  Then they close the book with the yearning, plangent ‘Restless Heart’.  Here we have a rootsy, folk-soul-blues type tune featuring rolling and rippling Dobro, over long notes of chapel-like organ, with sensitive, sometimes harmonised vocals on the top.  It’s a second cousin to the acoustic sections of ‘Taste Of Your Love’, from their debut album, but worth repeated listening in its own right.
Ashes To Dust is a strong and focused appetiser from Malone Sibun.  Bring on the next main course.
 
Ashes To Dust is out now on Redline Records, and can be ordered here.
 
 
Naked Gypsy Queens – Georgiana EP
 
Naked Gypsy Queens may be from Tennessee, but don’t go expecting them to sound all country-ish so-called Southern rock, no siree.  Okay, the closing track of the five here, ‘If Your Name Is New York (Then Mine Is Amsterdam)’ may have some hints of the Black Crowes, but that’s it – and I’ll get back to that curiously titled outing, inspired by a line in the Scorsese movie Gangs Of New York, in due course.
What we have here is modern classic rock, if you like, derived from sweating over plenty of the old school variety.  Opener ‘Georgiana’ sets out their stall with the twin guitar combination of

Naked Gypsy Queens, thankfully fully dressed

Pic by Juan Ibanez

Cade Pickering and Chris Attigliato, and if the latter’s voice isn’t quite as throat-shredding as Steven Tyler, it’s heading that way.  It rolls in with grinding slide guitar and ringing rhythm chords, rolling over crashing drums from Landon Herring, before breaking out into a turbo-charged riffing bridge halfway through its two-and-a-half-minute sojourn.  The riff on the following ‘Down To The Devil’ comes over like an illegitimate descendant of ‘Stormbringer’, while Attigliato rattles out the lyrics in teeth-chattering fashion.  The old-fashioned phrase that springs to mind is “Let’s rawk!”
‘Strawberry Blonde #24’ kicks off with gritty guitar over a thudding beat, before they switch things up into a big, ringing refrain around the repeated line “She’s gonna kill you dead”.  (Like, there’s another outcome possible?)  Then they cool their jets to usher in a scratchy, serrated-edge guitar solo that eventually achieves lift-off and meanders back to that bang-your head riff.  ‘Wolves’ opens up slower, with doomy drums’n’bass from Herring and Bo Howard, before getting into a twitchy groove powered by resonant guitar chords.  Attigliato’s vocals are at their most rasping here, but with a delivery that also leans, Chili Pepperishly and ear-catchingly, towards Anthony Kiedis.  Oh yeah, and there’s some atmospheric, high-wire guitar soloing too.
And then there’s the aforementioned ‘If Your Name Is New York’ thing to close.  As previously stated, there are some echoes of the Robinson bruvvers in its melodic, evocative acoustic opening, but then that Kiedis-esque vocal phrasing kicks in again to produce something more distinctive.  And speaking of distinctive, those big, ringing guitar chords turn up again as something of a trademark, before a Page-like guitar break beats a path to the grandissimo motif of the outro.
Fans of Tyler Bryant and his gang will probably dig the Gypsy Queen sound, but I don't need that comparison to like 'em.  Georgiana is a mucho impressive calling card.
 
Georgiana is released by Mascot Label Group/Mascot Records on 11 February, and can be ordered here.

 
Ritchie Dave Porter & Debra Susan – 'Sugar And Spice'
 
‘Sugar And Spice’ is the latest in a string of singles from Birmingham blues guitar stalwart Ritchie Dave Porter and vocalist Debra Susan, and Porter certainly gets it darting off its starting blocks with some meaty and life-in-the-fast-lane-intricate riffing.  Susan’s rather girlish vocals aren’t really my thang, but the double-tracking and reverb on the chorus an introduces an interesting Sixties vibe.  Porter catches the ear again with some tasty guitar work, well complemented by his own assertive, rumbling bass.  But overall the mix feels a bit off, with the drums pushed too far back.  There are good things going on in there, but some work is needed to make them gel more definitively.
 
‘Sugar And Spice’ is out now on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify.

Malone Sibun - Come Together

It’s easy to tag Malone Sibun as a blues rock outfit, combining as it does the talents of Detroit-born singer and guitarist Marcus Malone, who has released a handful of albums here in Britain, and guitarist Innes Sibun, who has previously worked with Robert Plant and Sari Schorr alongside his solo career.  It’s a handy enough label for what they do, but Come Together, their first album working together, demonstrates that they’re not one-trick ponies - even if the psychedelic sleeve, featuring the two of them looking like they've been jabbed with cattle prods, is a bit of a decoy.

Malone and Sibun - not the psychedelic cover pic

Songs like ‘Let Me Love You’ and ‘Lovelight’ certainly fit the blues rock archetype.  ‘Let Me Love You’ opens up with a gritty, Zep-esque somersaulting riff, to which Sibun adds filigrees of slide guitar before it settles into the kind of territory that’s familiar from Malone’s earlier work.  Again, it’s easy to compare his vocal style with Paul Rodgers, but the cap fits as one listens to this, while Sibun makes his presence felt with a needle-sharp solo.  And yes, there’s something vaguely Whitesnake-ish about the vibe of  ‘Lovelight’, with its ripped out, ruff’n’tuff chords and catchy chorus complemented by smatterings of lead guitar, before a key change triggers a good solo from Sibun, and they take it down for the bridge before adding a guitar harmony segment for good measure.

The slow blues box is ticked by ‘So Tired Of Living’, a Sibun composition on which Malone comes over all Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland while his partner adds guitar licks over simple organ colourings from Stevie Watts, and shows bags of feeling on his solo, when he stretches things out and leaves plenty of space, though at times he does have a tendency to go to the other extreme with flurries of unnecessary notes.  And there’s even a hint of talking blues about ‘Rabbit Hole’, a slight but fun affair with a shuffling rhythm laid down by Malone’s long-time drummer Chris Nugent, more slide guitar from Sibun, and a rollicking bridge and solo.

But Malone and Sibun also like to veer into more soulful stylings.  ‘She’s My Girl’ may rock, with big chords and squealing Sibun slide, but at heart it’s a booty-shaking Sixties soul concoction with a “where have I heard it before” chorus that morphs into an irresistible “ooh, ooh, ooh-la-la” middle eight.   Meanwhile both ‘I Want You Back’ and the closing ‘Everyday’s A Miracle’ are relaxed and sun-kissed offerings, the former with Philly-sounding backing

Partners in crime getting down

vocals – but thankfully no syrupy Philly strings – and the latter with an optimistic lyric that’s straight out of the

Malone playbook, and a spot on solo from Sibun that glides over a key change.

There’s more good stuff too, starting with the opening 'Come Together' with its tough, stop-start riff and a Morse Code-like solo from Sibun, though I’m less convinced by its rather strained backing vocals.  It lays down a marker with its great sound though, bringing out booming drums from Nugent and grooving bass from Roger Inniss.  ‘Taste Of Your Love’ is reprised from Malone’s 2007 album Hurricane, and while I might have picked others from his back catalogue, provides some stylistic balance with its acoustic guitar opening reminiscent of Whitesnake’s ‘Ain’t Gonna Cry No More Today’ and patient, sometimes double-tracked vocals, before revving up and kicking ass from the bridge onwards.  And ‘Jodie’ is a rattling blast of roll, with honky tonk piano from Watts in the background and a scrabbling Sibun solo over a great bass groove from Inniss.

Ultimately I reckon Come Together is one killer song short of really knocking it out of the park, but that’s a compliment really – a sense that the best may still be to come once the Malone and Sibun partnership has matured.  But their first outing still confirms that these are blues rockers who have plenty of musical clubs in their bag, and who know how to swing ‘em.

Come Together is released by Redline Music on 31 January 2020.

Marcus Malone - A Better Man

So you like a bit of blues-rock, do you?  Well get ready to be knocked out by Marcus Malone’s new album A Better Man – and I mean floored by a sound that socks you between the ears with its big, fat production.  I tell you, right from the opening bars of ‘House Of Blues’, with Malone’s soulful baritone surfing a wave of magnificently meaty rhythm guitar from Sean Malone on a son-of-Peter-Gunn riff, this is a sound Martin Birch would have been happy to achieve with Whitesnake.

Marcus Malone and gang give it some stick

It’s tempting to look for comparisons with other artists and bands when listening to A Better Man.  But mostly it sounds like – well, Marcus Malone and his familiar band of co-conspirators.  So get ready for some  rockin’ blues tunes, some walloping good riffs (with the occasional homage, shall we say, to some classics), some spot-on high harmonies, and a few guitar harmony licks into the bargain.  You also get the odd corny lyric here and there, but hey, what the hell?

So check out the massive crunch of the ‘Owner Of A Lonely Heart’-like riff on the title track.  Check out the slide solos from Stuart Dixon and Julian Burdock and blazing harp from Alan Glen on ‘Too Long Gone’, over Chris Nugent’s shuffling drum rhythm.  Check out the 21st century grandchild of ‘Shakin’ All Over’ that is ‘Philomene’, with its chirping organ from Moz Gamble and winning exhortation to “shimmy shimmy shimmy, shake’n’shake’shake”.  Check out ‘Can’t Go Back’ and its ‘Heartbreaker’ riff.  Check out – well, you get the picture.

Marcus has a few other song-writing strings to his bow though.  There’s the AOR soul of ‘Stand Up (Love Of Life)’ for example.  ‘In Your Arms’ is a Foreigner-style slice of reflection – though with a lead vocal about an octave lower than Lou Gramm – that culminates in a cascade of highly polished vocal harmonies.  ‘Feelin’ Bad Blues’ goes for an easy-going down home porch vibe, opening over a simple, stomping kick drum and featuring honky tonk keys from Gamble. Most remarkably, ‘The Only One’ heads off into Byrds territory, with a psychedelic guitar wig-out from Sean Nolan while Chris Nugent belts the living daylights out of his kit.

I could go on.  The point is that Marcus and chums may not do anything wildly original, but they do it very, very well.  If David Coverdale were able to make an album like this nowadays, instead of fannying about with retreads of Purple tracks, he’d win back a lot of listeners from days gone by.  Mind you, he’d have to match Marcus Malone’s vocals too.

So strap yourself in front of your speakers, and get ready to have the blues rocked out of you!

A Better Man is released by Redline Music on 30 March, and can be pre-ordered from Amazon.

The Blues Enthused Christmas Stocking, Part 1

Blues Enthused is just over a year old now, and has had nearly 6400 views for its 76 posts in that time – though to be honest, I’m still a bit sceptical about the 850 views from Israel that occurred in the space of one night!

Anyway, with the festive season upon us, I reckoned it would be good to say thanks to all those who’ve taken the time to read the blog, and to all the artists who’ve inspired it.  So here’s the first part of the Blues Enthused Christmas Stocking, where I’ve pulled together some videos of acts who caught my attention one way or another over the last year.  Enjoy!

First up, in more ways than one, is Marcus Malone – who featured in the first ever live review on the blog at the end of November last year, and was then the subject of the blog’s first interview in June.  So here’s a blast of an old track, ‘Blue Radio’, filmed at that gig – with the added extra of a guest appearance by electric cello specialist Calum Ingram.

Crow Black Chicken - Who hid the shaving gel?

One of the more popular album reviews was for Deep South, the live recording released back in June by the Irish power trio Crow Black Chicken.  The album was gutsy, noisy, and even funny.  Here’s the video they’ve put together recently for one of the standout tracks, ‘Priest Hunter’.

Another great album released this year was The RCA Sessions, by Malcolm Holcombe.  It only got a passing mention on the blog in a Listened to lately post back in July, because I’d actually reviewed it for The Blues Magazine, where I gave it 9 stars.  It’s a great example of songwriting and semi-acoustic rootsiness in a Tom Waits/Bob Dylan/Steve Earle vein – see what you make of this solo live performance of the rattling ‘Butcher In Town’.

I caught Ian Siegal playing solo in Glasgow in October – having previously reviewed a band performance in Newcastle, and his live album One Night In Amsterdam, back in March.  Here’s one of the standouts from his solo set, ‘Hard Times Come Again No More’, a song that dates all the way back to the American Civil War - shame about all the chattering gits in the background.  Having seen Siegal performing with American buddy Jimbo Mathus in 2014, I’m looking forward to catching the two of them again when they tour Europe next year – no shows in Scotland, but worth making the journey to see them elsewhere.

An intriguing find this year was an American guy with a wild back story called Fantastic Negrito, whose deluxe EP I reviewed in August – as I put it back then, imagine that Prince woke up from a night dreaming of work songs, and headed straight into the studio to start recording.  Make your own mind up with this stripped back version of ‘Lost In A Crowd’.

Vintage Trouble - dressed to kill

Closer to home, one of the standouts of the year was inevitably King King, and their be-kilted Glaswegian main man Alan Nimmo.  I saw them in Glasgow in March, and Glenrothes in November, as well as reviewing their latest album Reaching For The Light in April.  Next year promises to be a big one for them, and here’s something a wee bit different – a BBC Radio 2 session on the Paul Jones Show.

Also in the 'next big thing' category are Vintage Trouble, who I saw live for the first time at the Barrowlands in Glasgow.  With two sparkling albums and some big support slots behind them, and a dedicated fan following (the ‘Trouble Makers’), they’re now taking their 60s style soul/blues/funk revue stylings to a new level.  Check out this live performance of ‘Run Like A River’.

I’ll be interested to see how things go next year for Kansas City based singer and bassist Danielle Nicole, whose impressive debut album Wolf Den I covered when it came out in October.  The girl can’t half sing, and producer Anders Osborne gave the album a distinctive modern sound.  Little wonder that the outing was featured in the Blues Magazine's Top 50 albums of the year.  Here’s a sample of Danielle getting funky with 'You Only Want Me When You Need Me'.

More highlights to come in the Christmas Stocking Part 2.  Meantime, Merry Christmas folks!

Living the Blues - Marcus Malone interview

When I caught up with Marcus Malone for a chat it was at the end of a long couple of days for him and his band, having set off from London at dark o’clock the previous morning, before playing a couple of shows in Glasgow and Ardrossan.  Marcus wasn’t long off the stage from their Ardrossan set, reviewed a couple of weeks ago in these virtual pages, but how had the Glasgow Blues Club gig gone?

“That was good,” he says, “that was hot – at the Record Factory, a good crowd, put on by George Lindsay.  He has a band in Glasgow, and I called him up to see if he could help me out with a gig, because we were coming up here to do Ardrossan, and he said you called at the right moment, he was just starting up a club there.  A lot of people came out to support it, we did a good show, and sold a lot of CDs, so everybody’s good and that’s really neat!”

Speaking of CDs, there had been mention recently about Marcus getting a new album out in the autumn, following on from 2014’s Stand or Fall, so I asked him how it was shaping up.  But he had a surprise to offer in response.

“Well, I think we may end up doing a live album,” he says, “because I don’t have one, and everywhere we go, people are asking, ‘Do you have a live album, do you have a live album?’  We’ve recorded the music for another regular album, but I think the live album might happen first.  So we’re going to be recording at a gig we have coming up in Chislehurst in about a month’s time – we’ll record a few gigs, we’ve got a great guy who mixes, and we’ll see how it goes.

Marcus goes for it

A new studio album is indeed making progress though, he says.  “That’s going well.  I’m mixing a bit of it – that’s the same band that did the Stand or Fall album.  When we did the Stand or Fall album we had about six cuts left over, so it’s basically a continuation – kind of ‘Part 2 Stand or Fall’, and it’s gonna be called Better Man.  It’s the same musicians, and we’re recording about eight new songs.  That’s going well, so it could go either way with the live album, but they’ll be in quick succession.”

Any tracks you’re particularly enthusiastic about?

“Yeah, you heard ‘em tonight – ‘Feeling Bad Blues’ and ‘House of Blues’.  Then we’ve got some more – don’t know if they’re gonna work or not, I’ve been playing with ‘em – but they’re kind of like Otis Redding, kind of short, three minute songs and they got that 60s kinda energy to ‘em.  So – it might work!”

Noting that his 2011 album Let the Sunshine In has a lighter, funkier feel than Stand or Fall, or 2007’s Hurricane, I wondered how an album might develop its own vibe during the process of being made.

“I don’t really get up in the morning and say I’m gonna write that,” Marcus offers.  “I just kind of get an idea for a song, and as it develops that’s the way it goes.  Like I said with these new songs I’ve been writing I’ve just been coming up with this Otis Redding vibe, they’re like really high-powered soul songs.

“But Let the Sunshine In, a lot of people said the writing on that they liked it better than Stand or Fall, but with Stand or Fall the concept of the album from beginning to end is better, ‘cause it feels like ‘this is a blues rock album’, whereas Sunshine feels a bit more scattered.”

Noting that some of the songs on Stand or Fall had different instrumentation, female backing vocals or other production flourishes, I asked what it was then like to strip them back again for live work with a straightforward guitar/bass/drums set-up.

“Well, a song’s a song, it’s a good song,” says Marcus.  “I mean we actually do those songs where we play venues where we do acoustic – where I play acoustic, we have two acoustics – the same songs can be broken down to just two people.  Then we play some songs where we might have bass, we might have a harmonica player come along, but it’s all acoustic.  A song’s a song – I think people go for the voice mainly, it’s the main melody.  All those other things are good around it – it’s like,” he laughs, “y’know, dessert!”

I mention the tendency among some blues artists to have more of a rotating cast of sidemen than a regular band, but if anything Marcus feels that lately he’s been moving towards the latter approach.

“Lately it has been, for the last couple of years, with Chris (Nugent, on drums) and Sean (Nolan, on guitar).  Mine is original music, so I almost have to have, really, a close-knit band.”

Having seen them play a couple of times now, I suggested that Marcus is pretty generous as a guitar player, not someone determined to have the limelight when it comes to soloing.  That raises a chuckle.

“Well, I don’t consider myself a Hendrix or something, but I do like to play – given the opportunity I will go for it!” he says, laughing.

On the vocal front, Marcus has now and then been compared to Paul Rodgers, and occasionally there are similarities, if no more than that.  But it seemed a bit ironic, I thought, that a black guy from Detroit gets compared to a British white guy who was inspired by the likes of Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, and Motown.  Marcus laughs loudly at that observation.

Doubled down on guitar - Marcus and Sean Nolan

“I’m influenced by the same people!  To me, realistically I don’t sound anything like him – if he were here, singing this stuff, you’d realise I don’t sound anything like him.  I have a similar ‘feel’ as he does, a soulful feel, and I happen to be doing rock music, so that’s the closest thing that people can think of.”

And as a guitarist does he have any particular influences?

“I listen to a lot of different people, I listen to obvious people like Hendrix, soul players that played behind James Brown on the funky things.  I mean, you know, I listen to a lot of different things.  BB was also one of my favourite guitarists and I was fortunate to meet and open up for him at the Albert Hall.  A great guy and will definitely be missed.  And you can’t love Hendrix without appreciating Buddy Guy.”

Mentioning that from time to time he likes to drop the odd Lizzy-ish guitar harmony into a song, I wondered if that came from anywhere in particular.

“That’s something I’ve always done, since the late 70s and the original Marcus band,” he says, referring to the heavy metal band he formed in the States.  “If you listen to that album you’ll hear like, triple harmonies – it’s always been there.  I used to have two guitars, at one point I had three back in the late 70s, and I used to hum the lines and they would play ‘em – so I’ve been doing that for ages!”

Latching on to Marcus’s Detroit background, I dropped his fellow Detroiter Ted Nugent into the conversation.  There’s a whiff of his ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ about the riff to ‘Can’t Stop’, I reckon.  Marcus is well tickled by the notion.

“Oh Teddy, yeah!  Okay – well actually Sean wrote the music to that, but I’m sure he’s not familiar with Ted Nugent,” he says, laughing – I thought it was more Aerosmith!  But I know Ted Nugent.  It’s funny how I met him, ‘cause he stole one of my drummers.  And then he picked me up once hitch-hiking – it was about 5.30 in the morning, I was on my way to Ann Arbor, that’s where he’s from as well.”

And from Detroit back in the day it was then back to the present.  Kaz Hawkins and her Band O’Men could be heard taking to the stage in the Ardrossan Civic Centre, and it was time for us to wrap up, and for Marcus and his band to get some down time ahead of their next gig in Warrington the following night.  The road, as they say, never ends.