Guitarist and Singer Dorian Marsh Honors His Musical Heroes to Inspire Listeners Today

As an artist, Dorian Marsh is a heady blend of the last century of American musical culture, all the way from Robert Johnson to RONNY J. The Dallas-born bluesman is a 26-year-old showstopper who always aims to “leave everywhere he goes in shambles,” and with a voice like his, that goal seems inevitable.

“What I mean by that is to leave people present and to leave people inspired, just like how the cats I grew up watching — Gary Clark Jr., Leon Bridges — left me inspired,” Marsh says.

Marsh comes across like a character from an old novel who would teach the stick-in-the-mud protagonist how to loosen up and “be cool.” Every detail about him feels hand-picked by some omnipotent author: his soulful pre-war tinged vocals, the old beat-up jackets and baggy pants he rocks while playing his 1950’s Harmony H60 guitar — lovingly named “Pony” for the horseshoe branded on its shoulder — or even the fact that he lives in a house left smoke-stained by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson that Sara Tillman, a cornerstone of the Bishop Arts community, previously owned. Oh yeah, he also found old Polaroids of Stevie Ray Vaughan when he moved in, he says.

Marsh says his old-school style and his appreciation for music from well before his years derives from the time he spent at his grandparents’ house as a child.

“My grandma would sing Ike, and I’d sing Tina because my voice was so high,” Marsh says. “We’d sing 'Proud Mary' together.”

He’d also spend hours sifting through his grandpa’s ceiling-high stack of records and spinning classic albums from Charles Mingus, Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd. The legendary guitarists in his ear made Marsh fall in love with the instrument long before he ever held one, so when his friend put a dolphin-blue, rosewood-necked ‘82 Stratocaster in his hand, it struck Marsh like he’d stuck a fork in a wall socket.

“It was inseparable for me,” he says. “After that I started listening to any possible thing I could learn for the guitar.”

He spent his days as a teen practicing chords and blasting The White Stripes in his stuffy, windowless converted garage/bedroom, just knowing that something special was brewing deep inside him. He didn’t yet know what that was, but he got his first taste of it in a guitar club at the University of North Texas started by fellow Dallas musicians Lia Graham and Gracen Wynn.

After joining, Marsh performed in front of others for the first time. He was deathly nervous, and the moment was such an emotional release for Marsh that he cried afterward. He despised school but recognizes now that certain moments during his time at UNT were instrumental in his path as a musician — like the time he failed a class and decided to spend the day thrifting.

“I felt like something was calling my name, and I don't know what it was, but I remember I was on the hunt for something,” Marsh says. “I went in the very back of this antique store, and there was this Harmony guitar from the Sears catalog that had a horseshoe branded into it. I saw that guitar and for some reason in me, I knew this was it. I bought it for 200 bucks, and since then it’s been everywhere. It’s been my life.

“That's when things started,” he says. “I made that connection, and I finally decided to not be scared anymore and to pursue this.”

The next day, Marsh reached out to a guitarist he’d befriended online named Ian Ross Cohen, a better-established artist from up north. Cohen had discovered Marsh through a video of his playing that had gone viral, and the two quickly connected over their love for music. Cohen saw something special in Marsh that made him push the idea of the pair working together, and for Marsh, praise from someone he looked up to musically was a much-needed boost to his self-image as a musician.

“This is during a time where I was still kind of struggling with that belief in myself of doing this,” he says.

A few months later, he flew out to Cohen’s house in Mahwah, New Jersey, to start on their first album together, Meeting Place. Named after the town in which it was recorded, (Mahwah is derived from a word from the Lenape language meaning “meeting place”) the album was laid down in six days over one mic in Cohen’s bedroom, sometimes with the two guitarists playing into the wall with the mic behind them just as Robert Johnson did back in the 1930s. The record’s raw production style transports the listener straight back to the pre-war era for a dose of Marsh’s bluesy, soulful voice and Cohen’s all-encompassing grasp of guitar.

Marsh cries out on “Sit at Home,” a song that would turn heads and stop traffic on a busy intersection. Cohen’s tinny, jubilant strumming pairs nicely with the rasp and emotion coming from Marsh, and he further shows off his prowess in a jam section toward the end of the track. Marsh is much more reserved on “Tallahatchie River Blues,” producing a slow-burn riff that Cohen blazes over with screeching distorted chords. “Hounds Tail” is another example of Marsh’s earth-shaking voice; he delivers each verse with a force powerful enough to knock over a barstool but lingers on the end of his words with a delicacy that flaunts his impressive vocal skill.
“There she go 'gain knockin’ on my front door / My life’s been oh sunken down to the floor / I’m hiding between my tail / Hiding all night long / And if it weren’t for you, little baby / I’d be singin’ a different kind of song,” he sings.

Keep in mind that these performances were all recorded while Marsh had little to no experience performing and no clue how to record music. Marsh says when they started, it was only his third time behind a microphone, which is absurd to hear given the quality of these tracks. The thing that had been waiting deep down within Marsh had finally been let loose, and when he got back to Dallas, he used it to go on a rampage.

In between 12-hour shifts as a BBQ cutter, Marsh began playing just about every open mic in the Dallas area. Despite initially thinking it was a strip club — it's a chocolate shop — Chocolate Secrets became one of Marsh’s favorite spots to perform. The host, Janna Wilson, was another influential figure who pushed Marsh forward on his journey as a musician.

“She was a person that played a huge part in me believing in myself,” he says.

It was through this nonstop performance schedule that Marsh met his next partner, Max Twaddle, at The Kava Bar in Denton. They became friends after watching each other’s sets, and in November, Cohen flew down to Texas and the three of them played a show together in Denton. They had a clear chemistry, so Cohen and Marsh made sure to rope Twaddle in for their next collaboration, the upcoming Towns in Between. Last July, Marsh flew out to Cohen’s house in Jersey to start on the album. Marsh was the last to get there, and upon arriving, he found that Twaddle and Cohen had already laid down a track or two. According to Marsh, this is nothing out of the ordinary for Cohen, whose expertise and drive easily make him the ringleader of the three.

“Ian is a powerhouse,” Marsh says. “He's really taught me how to be resilient when recording, and how to be sensitive at the same time, and how to really tap into yourself at that moment.”

Towns in Between, which releases on March 31, took twice as long to record as Meeting Place, and the difference in production between the two is immediately palpable from the singles alone. Where MP stands out for its rough edges and raw energy, this next record is much more controlled and rounded out. “Pomona,” another tune named after the town it was penned in, is furnished with lyrics that came to Marsh’s mind as he and Twaddle drove around the area. The track delivers a polished Marsh singing over a mix of plucked and bowed strings from Cohen and Twaddle.
“Prune these wounded leaves / The sky moves with the sea / Share your way of being / Full of life and green,” he sings. “Stripped me of the mistakes I have made / You showed me the things I could do to love in my own way.”

Twaddle takes the mic for “Neath the Lonely Pines,” a laid-back campfire song about self-reflection. He shows off an impressive vocal range, and the guitar playing is exquisite; the three players mesh beautifully with high-plucked notes and bent chords that accent the main riff.

“Towns in Between,” the album's title track and final single comes out March 10. The song was originally inspired by Forest Hill, a town Marsh had passed through one day on his way to Fort Worth.

“I was driving through this town, and it just was destroyed,” he says. “There were prostitutes out at, like, 3 in the afternoon, and there were desert-colored tanks being driven into the city. There were rusty chain link fences, there's grass growing inside these abandoned buildings, and it's just unbelievable to look at. Then right after that town, it was just this rootin’ tootin’ Fort Worth that had all these lights and was just beautiful.”

The immense contrast between these two areas which are only 20 minutes apart was astonishing to Marsh and brought to mind the age-old “journey vs. destination” quandary. He recalls that when he went on road trips as a child, his stepfather would tell him to look out both windows, not to miss the other side’s view.

“We tend to find ourselves so focused on the destination that we forget about the journey that's in between things, kind of looking out both windows, and getting a glimpse of what this life is truly about,” he says.

Marsh has also dedicated the song to his father, Nathan Pemberton, who died recently. Marsh says that although he’d lived a difficult life, his father remained a strong person who made the best of things and shared his love with those around him.

“I can't say that life was ever fair to him,” he says. “He raised me and my brother, and there’s this beautiful part of him that he spread with everybody. He took on life, even though it was extremely hard for him.”

Aside from Towns in Between, Marsh is also working on solo material. He wants to deliver a healthy mix of just about every genre from blues to black metal. He works out most of his unreleased stuff live, so if you want to hear him perform you can catch him at the Fort Worth African American Roots Music Festival and at Tom’s Daquiris in Denton back to back on Mar. 15. After seeing what he’s put out so far, it’s hard to guess exactly what sound is going to come out of Marsh next, but it’s bound to be something special.