“I asked if he had anything inspiring – he brought Gregg Allman’s ’66 Guild Starfire. It’s cool that Gregg played a small part on this record”: Marcus King on true love as recovery, being neighbors with Billy Strings and the Tele he bought while drunk

A moody blue shot of Marcus King wearing a cowboy hat, sitting on a seat with his Gibson ES-345.

Darling Blue is the Marcus King Band's first album since 2018’s Carolina Confessions. This might sound weird about a group that has been road warriors since they debuted with 2014’s Soul Insights. But King’s last three albums have been solo efforts, recorded with producers Dan Auerbach and Rick Rubin and their crews of session musicians.

While King says he learned a lot working with these seasoned pros, he was eager to get back to working with his road band. Emphasizing this back-to-his-roots approach, King recorded Darling Blue at Macon, Georgia’s Capricorn Studios, where the Allman Brothers Band, Marshall Tucker Band, Wet Willie and many others recorded landmark Southern music.