Review: Marcus King Serves Up Old School Southern Rock and Soul on 'El Dorado'

The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach cares nothing about your trends. He's proved that over the past two years, both as a producer and as the head of his own Easy Eye Sound studios. Instead, Auerbach's production skills have focused on taking musical forms that have stood the test of time and making modern versions of them with no frills and no gimmicks, just good music done really well. In 2019, that resulted in Yola's debut Walk Through Fire, which was widely hailed (including here) as one of the best albums of the year. Now, in early 2020, Auerbach has teamed up with 23 year old guitar wizard Marcus King for his debut album, El Dorado, an unabashed dive into Southern rock and Muscle Shoals-style soul.

While El Dorado represents King's solo debut, he's no newcomer to the music scene. The guitar prodigy has worked with numerous artists in the Nashville area and released three albums with The Marcus King Band. For his solo debut, Auerbach brought in a stable of industry veterans who have worked with the likes of Elvis, Bobby Womack, and more. The most impactful of these adds was Pat McLaughlin, the longtime songwriter and sideman, who co-wrote a number of the tracks on El Dorado with King and Auerbach.

While King's solo debut puts more of a focus on his leathery, Leon Russell-esque vocal skills, the songs that land the hardest on El Dorado are the ones that allow King to cut loose on the guitar. The album's first single, “The Well” has such fat blues-rock guitar licks that you could almost feel King growing a spontaneous bushy beard to become the fourth member of ZZ Top. On “Turn It Up”, King employs a cleaner, but no less groovy, guitar lick.

Lyrically, there is a lot to recommend on El Dorado. “One Day She's Here” finds King lamenting a fickle lover in an almost delicate falsetto, crooning “she disappears just like the dawn. One day she's here, the next she's gone.” “Beautiful Stranger” tells another tale of fleeting love, as two people meet in a bar over drinks and a slow song, and fulfill each other's needs for one night. The album's opener “Young Man's Dream” is a reality check on the idyllic life imagined by a 17 year old breaking free from his home life.

If you're looking for some kind of groundbreaking electro-fusion Southern rock with a side of hip hop, El Dorado isn't the album for you. But if you grew up listening to the likes of The Allman Brothers Band, Bob Seger, or even “Hey Jude” era Wilson Pickett, then El Dorado is going to hit your sweet spot like few recordings are likely to in 2020.