Bobby Marquez’s music career started with a Martin guitar pulled from a trash can. The singer-songwriter, whose croon-heavy, country sound has led to him working with producer Jerry Crutchfield, while also writing cuts for the likes of George Strait and Rhonda Vincent, was 13 years old when his cousin tossed a guitar he couldn’t play in the trash. Marquez intercepted it, ultimately leading him to a music career in Nashville.
That career has taken him down many roads, including U.S. Highway 160 West, which led him to Durango on a few occasions, one happening Tuesday when Marquez plays the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College.
Billed as the “Backstage Series,” Marquez will share the stage with local gritty-country singer Thom Chacon.
If you go
WHAT: Backstage Series with Thom Chacon ad Bobby Marquez.
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.
WHERE: Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College, 1000 Rim Drive.
TICKETS: $38.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.durangoconcerts.com.
“It changed my whole life. I took it home and learned how to play it,” Marquez. “My mom was the one that actually kept pushing me. She started getting me to sing at some of the family reunions, and then I thought, ‘wow, this is kind of cool.’ Then I just started jumping into it, and when I got into college I put a band together, and then I just started pushing it from there. Then I got the dare into me to go to Nashville.”
A mutual acquaintance connected Marquez with Chacon, who first shared a bill at the old Abbey Theatre, now the Animas City Theatre. Marquez instantly became a fan.
“I watched him perform and I was like, ‘my god, this guy can write a song,’” Marquez said. “He doesn’t sound like anybody else, he’s himself and people can relate to that. And that to me is what we need in music, we need those people who are different and don’t sound like everybody else. Even when Thom sings he separates himself from everybody else, you hear that voice and you say, ‘that’s Thom Chacon.’”
It’s their differences that create the onstage appeal, as the two lyrically celebrate the good times and bad times of life, a solid dose of human reality brought about via vivid narratives in their songs. Chacon has a gothic-folk attitude, and while Marquez too can get dark, he’s also got a country, dance-hall vibe, heard in his Jimmy Buffett-inspired cut “Neon Tan.”
“’Neon Tan’ is an upbeat song that you want to drink to, and my songs make you want to drink as well, but for a different reason,” Chacon said. “They’re dark, and I think that when Bobby and I get together, somehow it makes sense.”
“It’s going to be fun because we’re going to balance each other out,” Marquez added. “I think the audience will appreciate the highs and lows.”
Another commonality is work in television and film. Marquez in the past has been recruited as an extra in films as well as worked in commercials, while Chacon is currently appearing in Amazon Prime’s “Wild West Chronicles,” as well as the film “The Outlaws.”
Music, however, remains first and foremost. Chacon will drop a new record later this month and will tour through Spain and Italy toward the year’s end, and Marquez continues to work on a new record while looking ahead to holiday shows in Branson, Missouri, billed as “Texas Cowboy Christmas.”
Marquez also still has that keepsake he saved from the landfill, now a piece of studio décor that remains a nod to the early days of his career.
“I still have that guitar, and if I go to any show, I get artists to sign that guitar; it means a lot to me. I wrote a lot of my early songs with it, so I keep it on display in my studio at home,” he said. “It just means a lot to me.”
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
