Marcus Malone

Excerpts from Feature Aritcle
'Blues In Britain"
July 2002

Originally from Detroit, Michigan USA, Marcus Malone lived near Hitsville and grew up to Motown grooves. Now settled in Britain, he is a rising star, here and in Europe. He opened up at the Royal Albert Hall for BB King and has shared the bill with Walter Trout. His second UK album Walkin' Shoes, is just released. Marcus found time to speak to Bill Smith and Fran Leslie during his busy schedule. Photo by Julian Haycock.

My first stage experience was at five years old in Mt Olive Baptist Church, Detroit. 'Listen to the Voice of the Savior' was the song and I was shakin. I loved it though and couldn't wait to do it again. For me right now performing live and writing music is my best way of communicating.

I've always had two guitar players with me, even on my earlier Marcus album, when I got my break. As soon as we came out of high school - we started working the clubs in Detroit, Chicago and traveled south to Florida. After about three years together we got signed to United Artists Records (EMI-Capitol) and moved to Los Angeles. That was it: rock and roll,drugs, sex, travelling. We did it all.

Rythm and blues was really my first musical preference. I lived down the road from a famous club in Detroit called the Twenty Grand Ballroom which is part of the 'Chitlin' circuit where BB King, Bobby Blue Bland, James Brown, Dionne Warick and all the Motown artists played every night of the week. Playing there was my first professional experience. I did a bunch of James Brown songs and everybody loved it. They called it Blue Monday and they had me back for the next three or four weeks.

My first brush with root blues was Muddy Waters, Electric Mud album. I really liked the Stones and realized the songs they were doing a lot of the time were written by Willie Dixon. That's when my blues education began. I loved Hendrix - blues at maximum volume. The first time I heard him a friend of mine had just bought a new stereo. He said, 'You gotta listen to this!' - Hendrix became my hero. At the same time, he (my friend) was into the Beatles, Zepplin and a whole barrage of music other than the Motown which I had grownup on.

The UK has been good for me. I've met some really wonderful people and great musicians. The first thing I did band wise was put together 'Redhouse' with the then guitar player Adam Salkeld. We wrote some great songs together and played a lot of the rock venues in London before diversifying and doing the blues circuit where we altered the music we wrote into a more blues/rock feel versus the straight heavy rock vibe.

After we broke up, I carried on in the blues/rock songwriting style. I do covers from time to time, but my show was and still is 95% to 100% original material. I've always held the view that the people that pay to see me hopefully want to hear me do my thing, my music as it were.

Walkin' Shoes (the new album), as with One More Time I wrote and produced myself. It was a real pleasure to record with some of the UKs finest musicians. There are different musicians on each track to get the desired effect of a particular song. The constant feel throughout is Sam Kelley on drums and Phil Williams on bass. They kind of glue it all together.

The album features Otis Grand on the title song. I learned a lot from working with him. He really knows what a good blues mix should sound like, especially if he's on the track, and was very instrumental in the final mixes of the songs he did the guitar work on. Papa George came round to check out a couple of ideas I had and we ended up tacking the acoustic duo 'Take It To Heart' which is getting some airplay.

 

Tommy Allen, who did most of the guitar work on One More Time album, came round to lend a hot solo on one of the tracks 'Blue Jeans' as well. Robin BB put his signature on the opening song 'Good Love Gone Bad' and 'Day I've Gone' - a 6/8 blues/rock extavaganza.

The basic tracks were laid down with Sam, Phil, Robin BB and Dan Smith on guitars at Denmark Studios, London. Steve Kent, the proprietor and engineer gets a great sound. He uses an old Trident board with ADATs and Pro-Tools. My studio at home is compatible with his as I have the same basics setup - ADATs, Mackie desk, digital recording capabilities. He just has more of it. I can bring the tapes home and do all the overdubs and mixing.

The dream of having a studio is you can leave it for a day and come back when your ears are fresh. I do get another pair of ears in to help me out with the mixing -Rod Blake. I usually set up a basic mix and then he comes around with fresh ears to assist me. He's really excellent with the mixing process and is an essential member of my 2 man production team. We also work together as a songwriting team for other projects.

chris | brad | marcus | moz | stuart

 

The core of my regular band now is Brad Waissman - bass, Dan Smith and Stuart Dixon - guitars, Moz Gamble - keyboards, Adam Roman - drums, and whenever I can get him I use Simeon Jones on saxophone and harmonica. We've toured Holland, Germany, Belgium and Italy. In Europe, they really like their blues hard and raw, which is great for us as we tend to be on the rocky side and don't have to hold back.

Songwriting is an will always be my main focus. Most of my songs are drawn from personal experiences and are autobiographical. Some of my material is being recorded by some up-and-coming signed artists. I enjoy writing with and for other acts as well as my own. I've never considered myself a great guitarist, but I do get a little divine inspiration on stage from time to time and I really enjoy playing. I - and hope others do- consider myself to be an entertainer - there's no better adrenaline rush than a good live performance to an appreciative audience.