By Tricia Despres
There was a time when Miko Marks lived and dreamed alongside the Flint River in the Michigan home of her grandmother, wondering just where her God-given voice would eventually take her.
But never did she dream it would eventually take her to Nashville.
To be sure, country music did get her attention from an early age, as the stories that served as the backbone to the songs of her youth did touch her heart in a way nothing else could. But making it as a Black woman in a genre in which very few Black women could be found?
It just didn’t seem possible.
Until it was.
Born in Flint, MI, Marks was raised at a time when it was a thriving community to grow up in. “Luckily, through my childhood, I got a chance to experience its vibrance,” reflects the CMT Next Women of Country artist during an interview with Ravinia Magazine. “It’s pretty sad now. The automotive industries have left, and the people are left with basically nothing except dirty water.”
The tone of her voice changes, as if to signal that this is a reality that she would rather not dwell on, but somehow change someday through her music. For now, and at this particular moment, the vocal powerhouse seems to better enjoy basking in the memories of her younger days, when music would ebb and flow through her grandma’s house as she listened intently to each and every note.
“The music we would listen to ranged from gospel to Motown to country to blues,” remembers Marks, who will play Ravinia Festival on July 13. “I was rooted and grounded in gospel, but I gravitated toward country at a young age because I liked the storytelling of it.”
When she was just 3 years old, Marks would grab her life-size Raggedy Ann doll and walk into the living room of her grandmother’s home, where she would sing for all who would listen.
“My mom worked the third shift,” Marks remembers. “But when she was there, she and my grandma would ask, ‘Come in here and sing a song.’ We would all be gathered around, and so I would take my doll and just sing. [Laughs.] Raggedy Ann would be my background singer.”
While that ruby-coiffed support has long since moved along, Marks’s voice is still a center of attention, and it’s this miraculous sonic treasure that an entire generation has now come to love.
“I just leave my soul on the floor for you to feel and pick up, and hopefully it uplifts you in some way,” says Marks, who is included in the Country Music Hall of Fame’s American Currents exhibit this year alongside the likes of fellow leading singers such as Ashley McBryde, Wynonna Judd, and the legendary Loretta Lynn. “It gets you out of that dark place. [Pauses.] That’s why I do it. It’s my therapy. Singing is my therapy.”
She draws in a deep breath.
“I think there’s a higher thing moving inside of me. I’m the vessel for the gift. When I’m able to touch a soul and make them get in connection with themselves and their emotions and kind of let it all out, that means I’m doing the work I was supposed to do.”
“I’m not just singing words,” continues Marks, who took her current album Feel Like Going Home to the top 10 on the Americana radio charts soon after its 2022 release. “I’m doing some actual healing work on a certain level. It’s an anointing type of thing. I was given this gift. It wasn’t something I worked hard for.”
Her last statement hangs in the air for a bit, as anyone who has followed Marks knows the sweat and tears that have fallen from her face as she has made her way to where she is today.
Because, as the story goes, Marks had thought her time as a country artist had passed her up years ago, after she had written and recorded two albums in the mid-2000s, only to be forgotten by an industry that seemed to no longer be enamored by her and her talent.
So, she stepped away.
She raised her son and played a few shows “here and there,” and began to find a sense of satisfaction in the bliss that she was establishing in her own life. But in 2019, she called up a couple of her former band members after she had a dream that she was playing music once again.
“They sent me the song ‘Goodnight America,’ and it floored me,” she remembers. “We recorded it, and then we recorded another one, and—then we had an album.”
Soon after, Marks found herself in the middle of an all-out resurrection of her country music career at the very same time that the light began to finally shine again through the cracks of the genre. And it’s that career that is exploding at the moment, as thousands flock to her brand of truthful yet uplifting songs that serve as the most satisfying of therapeutic sessions, as seen on the tear-soaked faces of all those that gathered last October to witness Marks’ Grand Ole Opry debut.
“Moments like that let me know that what I’m doing is not [just] me,” says Marks, whose critically acclaimed album Feel Like Going Home serves up a mix of country soul with a rootsy retro sound collectively created by Marks and her Resurrector bandmates and producers. “I think there’s a higher thing moving inside of me. I’m the vessel for the gift. When I’m able to touch a soul and make them get in connection with themselves and their emotions and kind of let it all out, that means I’m doing the work I was supposed to do.”
And she’s doing it the way she has always wanted to do it.
“I’ve moved past this point of where I want to please people or where I want them to like me or anything like that,” explains Marks, whose current album includes the stirring “Trouble,” which pays homage to late civil rights leader John Lewis. “I’m bruised and broken, but I am on the mend. I think that’s the reality. I’m being real for me. And I’m so glad that I’ve reached that point.”
She lets out a hearty laugh.
“And sometimes on stage, that means it gets ugly. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I shout, sometimes I dance. I just have an organic, spiritual, Holy Ghost session up there.”
Certainly, her faith has gotten Marks this far, and as she continues to embark on the journey to find and create new music, the resilient artist says she is letting fate do its work.
“You know that saying that when you tell God what you want, he laughs,” Marks says, letting out her own laugh in return. “That’s kind of what life is like for me right now. I’m just surprised and quite shocked that I’m back where I am right now.”
And when life gives her little moments in which to slow down, Marks still enjoys making a return to Flint to remind herself of just how far she has come, and the work she has left to do.
“It’s where my song ‘We Are Here’ came from,” she says quietly. “It’s a place of forgotten people. And for a country of this vast wealth to not come to the aid of its home grown, but can go overseas and do all this other work? I mean there is work that needs to be done here at home.”
She sighs.
“At the end of the day, I feel like in my spirit, I gave some good music to some people who enjoyed it. That’s what’s important, you know?” ■
Tricia Despres is a Chicago-area freelance entertainment writer whose work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, Taste of Country, People, and numerous local, regional, and national publications. Twitter: @CHIWriter