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Dance to it. Drink to it. Hold a loved one close to it. 

Just don’t jump to conclusions with Marcus King’s music. 

There’s more to this stirring Southern songwriter than the blues — a genre the soft-spoken 23-year-old found himself shepherding as frontman and masterful guitarist of The Marcus King Band 

“Unbeknownst to me, I’ve been a blues artist for the past five years and never once did I claim to be a blues artist,” said King, a South Carolina native living in Nashville. “I love blues music. I admire it to the fullest, but I’m not a blues musician. I’m a lot more than that. 

“And, honestly, I feel like I’m not as much as that. Coming from a lower middle class family, I don’t really know what it means to have the blues.”

Now, King steps out from behind the band to release “El Dorado,” his deeply soulful debut solo full-length, out now via Fantasy Records. King tracked the genre-blending effort at Easy Eye Sound in Nashville, teaming on production and songwriting with Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach. 

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And pay no attention to his age. King’s take on wistful soul ballads and foot-stompin’ honky tonk stories comes from years of entertaining in local watering holes. The grandson of an officers’ club musician who backed Johnny Cash and Charley Pride, King started playing with his dad at age 11 and launched his first band at 13. 

But, in high school, administrators didn’t take kindly to his after-hours activities. 

“I always got in trouble for being late to school or sleeping in class and they were trying to send me to court,” King said. “They wanted to put me in a detention center for troubled youth. 

I was trying to help support my mother with bills at the time. I was actually, in my mind, doing something noble.” 

Instead, King earned his GED and continued playing his way into new opportunities. He’s scored show slots with Chris Stapleton and Eric Clapton, launched a two-night music festival, The Marcus King Band Family Reunion, and made a Grand Ole Opry debut, playing his grandfather’s guitar on the hallowed country music stage. 

And King enters 2020 with a record showcasing the depth of his Southern R&B spirit. On album standout “Beautiful Stranger,” he gently gives the guitar a backseat for a story of longing love; On “Too Much Whiskey,” he pours a double shot of the journeyman’s spirit; and, with the tender-hearted “Wildflowers & Wine,” he sets a scene for time-tested intimacy. 

The record taps a familiar cast of tenured Nashville songwriters, with Pat McLaughlin, Paul Overstreet and Ronnie Bowman among King’s collaborators. King and the Easy Eye studio band tracked “El Dorado” in three days. 

He’ll take the album to Bonnaroo this summer and open for Stapleton at Bridgestone Arena in the fall.

“Marcus has been doing it for so long — since he was just a kid — on a circuit where people loved him,” Auerbach told the Tennessean. “He could just coast if he wanted. But he was brave enough to take a step away for a minute … and make some music and ride with people and have some new experiences.” 

King said he sees the album as a coming-of-age journey. 

“It tells a story of me growing up around music and the kinds of music that made my heart beat a little faster as a kid,” King said. “Soul music and country music, rock and roll music, all these different styles that went into what would make me become who I am.” 

Beyond any one genre, it’s “a way for me to rewrite the story,” he said. 

Is it working?  

“I don’t know,” he said, with a smile. “We’ll see what happens.” 

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