“You don’t want the soul to be detached from things because you’ll just have gratuitous shredding”: Marcus King on the current state of the guitar scene – and why there's hope for the future

Marcus King has fashioned himself as a quasi-old-school style player, favoring the ebb and flow of emotion and storytelling-driven playing – a stark contrast to the social media guitar landscape that prizes speed, agility, and the flashiest of flashy solos.

“Other people might have a larger vocabulary, and they’re going to speak more eloquently,” he says simply, when Guitarist asks him about the current guitar scene.

“I have the vocabulary that I have. I have a Southern accent, and it’s the same on the guitar. I adapted the guitar to do the talking for me when I was too shy. The basic root of my playing is to try not to think about it but allow myself to just express things wholly.”

Marcus King // Workin' Man Blues - YouTube

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In fact, King likens guitar playing to the subtleties and nuances of speech. “You go through life and you pick up things,” he explains. “You spend a lot of time around people you admire and, through osmosis, that starts to show in how you speak and tell stories. It’s the same for playing guitar; it’s all very organic.”

Ultimately, it all boils down to “soul.” “You don’t want the soul to be detached from things because you’ll just have gratuitous shredding,” he asserts.

However, King notes that “there’s hope for the future” and that, irrespective of the increasing emphasis on social media and the pressure on players to tally up follower counts, “it’s just a matter of putting less focus on things and letting the guitar speak for itself.”

“I just love the guitar so much,” he gushes. “I want to bring the guitar into the zeitgeist. I want people to accept it and understand it.

Marcus King - Full Show (4k, HQ Audio) - Syracuse, NY 6/8/2024 - YouTube

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“If you go over people’s heads, like really outside of the fringe, or if you’re on the fringe and trying to coerce people to reach out to you, they’ll be less inclined to do so. I want to take the guitar with me, bring it into the state of music now, and make it something everybody can enjoy.”

King has recently teamed up with Grace Bowers – another rising star of the vanguard of modern guitar players bridging the gap between different demographics and audiences.

The two recently joined forces at King’s show at the Brooklyn Paramount in New York for a blistering rendition of the Kris Kristofferson classic Me & Bobby McGee.

For more from Marcus King, plus new interviews with George Benson and Myles Kennedy, pick up issue 518 of Guitarist at Magazines Direct.