Jerimiah Marques

A powerful entertainer equally at home with vintage blues and early reggae and rocksteady, vocalist Jerimiah Marques had been a journeyman singer on the British blues and R&B scene for decades before he finally started gaining a larger audience for his work in 2016. Marques was born in Guyana but relocated to the U.K. when he was 11 to live with his father in London. In his teens, Marques began working with local bands and experienced a revelation in 1968 when he happened to stop by the Marquee Club and saw Muddy Waters and his band running through material for a show they were playing that evening. Marques was immediately struck by the musical and emotional power of the blues, and soon began singing with blues combos around London while also working with ska and reggae acts. In 1989, Marques was singing with the band Booze 'n Blooze when they were named grand-prize winners of the 1989 Banks Best of Blues competition, hosted by Jools Holland; a year later, the group released an album, Running Late. Peter "Sonny" Nash, who played keyboards and slide guitar with Booze 'n Blooze, became one of Marques' most valued colleagues, later working with him in the band Jerimiah Marques & the Blue Aces. In late 2007, Marques & the Blue Aces released an album, This Is Hip!, that documented their musical approach, deeply indebted to vintage blues of the '50s and '60s. Around the same time, Marques was also singing with the Skagills, a band that specialized in Jamaican ska, rocksteady, and early reggae. In 2012, Blue Aces drummer Mike Thorn opened a small recording facility in Kent, Rimshot Recording Studio, and in partnership with independent record label TreeHouse 44, he began producing a series of "Live at Rimshot" recordings, in which he would match bands with vocalists and let them perform spontaneously, as if jamming on-stage. For the second "Live at Rimshot" session in early 2015, Thorn brought in Marques to headline the project, backed by a crew of experienced British blues players, and the resulting album, Down by the River, combined Marques' blues stylings with his passion for Jamaican music. The album also included a pair of previously unreleased home recordings with Marques accompanied by Nash, who died in 2010. Released in May 2016, Down by the River became a critical and popular success in the British blues community, and exposed Marques to a new and larger audience in the U.K. In October 2016, Marques & the Blue Aces returned with a new album, Winning Hand. It was Marques' final album before he passed away on September 26th, 2017.
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