Jerimiah Marques

Jerimiah Marques commanded attention as a vocalist equally adept at interpreting vintage blues alongside the earliest strains of reggae and rocksteady. Long a familiar presence on the British blues and R&B circuit, he only began reaching a broader listenership with his recordings in 2016.

Born in Guyana, he arrived in the U.K. at age 11 to join his father in London. As a teenager he performed with several neighborhood ensembles until a 1968 visit to the Marquee Club, where he caught Muddy Waters and his group rehearsing for that evening’s show, revealed the blues’ full musical and emotional force. Soon afterward he began fronting blues groups across the city while simultaneously appearing with ska and reggae acts.

In 1989, while singing with Booze 'n Blooze, the band claimed first prize in the Banks Best of Blues competition presented by Jools Holland; the following year the group issued the album Running Late. Keyboardist and slide guitarist Peter “Sonny” Nash, a member of that lineup, became one of Marques’ closest musical partners and later joined him in Jerimiah Marques & the Blue Aces.

Near the close of 2007, Marques & the Blue Aces released This Is Hip!, a set that reflected their deep grounding in 1950s and 1960s blues. At the same time he was also performing with the Skagills, a band devoted to Jamaican ska, rocksteady, and early reggae.

Drummer Mike Thorn of the Blue Aces opened the compact Rimshot Recording Studio in Kent in 2012. In association with independent label TreeHouse 44, he launched the “Live at Rimshot” series of spontaneous sessions pairing bands and singers. For the second installment in early 2015, Thorn recruited Marques to front a group of seasoned British blues players; the resulting album Down by the River fused Marques’ blues approach with his longstanding interest in Jamaican music and also contained two previously unreleased home recordings of Marques accompanied by Nash, who had died in 2010.

Issued in May 2016, Down by the River earned both critical and popular favor within the British blues community and introduced Marques to a wider U.K. audience. In October of that year Marques & the Blue Aces returned with Winning Hand, his final album before his death on September 26th, 2017.