My mum, Margaret, proof read The Soul Survivors Magazine for the first 9 years of its production and she had a very active mind that worked well.  Just a couple of years later she was diagnosed with vascular dementia which now has a serious impact on her life and those around her.  Mum can’t read or write anymore and can speak three or four words maximum at any time.  

Dementia has a devastating impact on people so I decided to raise money and awareness.  I was going to cycle in an organised group from London to Paris but sadly it’s been cancelled two years running due to Covid.   I am being joined by Leslie and we will be cycling the same distance of 320 miles, but a round trip on the South Coast from West Malling to Portsmouth and back over 4 days.  We are training hard and will be raising money for Alzheimer’s Research to help find a cure for Dementia.  

If you have any spare pennies and would like to help fight dementia, please donate to my link.  Dementia can affect anyone! Thank you, Anna xxxx  https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/anna-marshall27

You were born in Brooklyn in 1959 and your Father played the piano and the organ. Is it correct that your Grandfather was a minister of an unorthodox African church and was quite close with the revered black, Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey and that your name came from that influence?

That is true. My Grandfather was from Barbados and Trinidad eventually emigrating to Brooklyn. He became an associate of Mr Garvey. They must have been close enough as their relationship inspired my Grandfather to name my Father William Henry Marcus Miller and I Marcus Jnr. My Dad was called Bill but my parents didn’t want to call me Bill Jnr so they named me Marcus and that’s the story. Marcus Garvey started a black West Indian version of the Orthodox Church, which was the African and Caribbean version of the Orthodox Church. My Grandfather was a bishop in that church with a congregation in Brooklyn and that’s where I grew up.




 

At what age did you realise you had the talent to play music?




 

My Dad played piano in our apartment in Brooklyn and eventually he gave me a few informal lessons. In school I played a wind instrument (the recorder) because they forced us to. The next year we moved to Jamaica Queens and I picked up on the clarinet at school and then the saxophone. I’d pick up and be able to play these instruments faster than the other fifth grade students because I was around music all the time. After church services my Grandfather and the whole family, including his four Sisters and a Brother would go down to the basement and play, as they were all musicians. Wynton Kelly used to play with Miles Davis and Wynton Kelly who is my Father’s cousin is an incredible jazz musician. They would all entertain each other so music was nothing special to me as it was just what my family did. When I was ten years old I heard The Jackson Five and that blew my mind because they were my age and looked exactly like me and their music was incredible. From that point on I decided I wanted to do something like that as I didn’t know you could be a professional musician. So in middle school during year eleven and twelve I got together with a couple of other kids and we’d try to be like The Jackson Five in a singing group but the guys couldn’t figure out how to harmonise. So I advised then who should sing and what partand where and they thought I was a genius. Eventually I switched to playing the bass because it was way more crucial to the soul music I was into. I graduated to liking Sly & The Family Stone and The Jackson Five were also big fans of theirs. Once you’re into Sly then you start checking out Isaac Hayes, Kool & The Gang, War and Mandrill. When you’re playing bass you start checking out Larry Graham who I didn’t really notice when he was with Sly apart from ‘Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself’. When Larry left Sly & The Family Stone and started putting the bass out front of his Graham Central Station group, we were asking each other ‘What is that?’



Can I ask you Fitzroy were you listening to Sly and Larry Graham growing up in London?

Yes, but more in my teen years, as we grew up pre teen in late 1960s to mid 1970s. We would hear a mixture of pop, glam rock funk and soul. Like you said about seeing The Jackson Five as examples of your own black imagery, I certainly experienced that too. However in my early teens I had graduated to totally embracing jazz, funk and soul.

To read the full interview via our digital on line issue click on this link below

https://www.thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk/current-issue/