Marcus King Band have confirmed their new album, Darling Blue, is set for release on September 26 via American Records/Republic Records. Pre-order/pre-save HERE.Darling Blue finds Grammy-nominated Marcus King reuniting with his longtime live band for their first recorded album together since 2018’s Carolina Confessions. Inspired heavily by his home state of South Carolina, the new album incorporates elements of country, folk, psychedelic rock and Motown-era R&B and continues the conversation on King’s experience with addiction and depression.
“It truly felt like home,” King details. “Like my band and I were just working out songs to perform live but ended up creating a piece of recorded music for our fans to hear. Our goal is always to be a vessel and allow the music to flow through us and tap into something that’s already there in the room. But more than anything I’ve done before, this album felt like a real concerted effort to make music for myself, and for ourselves as a band—creating for the love of creating and being as honest as we possibly can. We put everything we had into making something that we love and we have faith that the audience will feel that and love it too.”
In celebration, the band shares two new songs from the album—’Here Today’ featuring Jamey Johnson and Kaitlin Butts, of which King says, “The song came together in that organic way that happens when you’re just hanging out with friends instead of being on the clock.”
They have also shared ‘Carry Me Home’, which King describes as “the first song that poured out of me” for the album. The track reflects on his deep love for the Blue Ridge landscape and the place he calls home.
Leading up to today’s announcement, they’ve shared ‘Honky Tonk Hell’—which became the fastest single in King’s career to hit 1 million streams—as well as ‘Carolina Honey‘, released on the heels of King’s electric Bonnaroo performance to a crowd of 40,000.
Watch a performance of ‘Honky Tonk Hell’ at Bonnaroo HERE.
King just collaborated with Gibson for the release of his second signature guitar, the Gibson Marcus King ES-345. Learn more: PEOPLE, Guitar World, Premier Guitar.
The beloved Marcus King Band Family Reunion music festival will return for its fourth installment this summer, taking place in Charleston, SC for the first time ever. Over the course of two days—August 23 and 24—the festival will see performances by the Marcus King Band, Jamey Johnson, Stephen Wilson Jr., Molly Tuttle, Hiss Golden Messenger and more. Tickets and more information are HERE.
This year finds King hitting the road with Chris Stapleton, Cody Johnson, Eric Church and Dwight Yoakam. Find a complete list of dates below. In addition to King’s performance at Bonnaroo, he recently took the stage at CMA Fest in Nashville, performing at Nissan Stadium alongside Brooks & Dunn. He also played Spotify House before joining forces with Jordan Davis for a special performance of their unreleased track, ‘Louisiana Stick’. Additionally, King surprised fans with a pop-up set at Chief’s for Sirius XM and sat in with Lukas Nelson for his set as well.
Greenville, South Carolina-born, Nashville-based Marcus King started performing alongside his blues guitarist father when he was just eight years old. He made his solo debut with El Dorado (2020), produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. The album was met with widespread acclaim, with the Associated Press calling it “a definite high point of 2020.” It went on to earn King his landmark Grammy nomination for Best Americana Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.
He followed up the success of El Dorado with Young Blood (2022), also produced by Auerbach. His second album debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Top Blues Albums Chart, the magazine described it as a “staggeringly confident work.” Last year King returned with his third album, Mood Swings, produced by Rick Rubin, of which Rolling Stone said, “he…goes for something much more daring, vulnerable, and openhearted.”
