Ravinia 2023 Issue 2

AMANDA LOPEZ When she was just 3 years old, Marks would grab her life-size Rag- gedy 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 hope- fully it uplifts you in some way,” says Marks, who is included in the Coun- try 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. [ Paus- es .] That’s why I do it. It’s my therapy. Singing is my therapy.” She draws in a deep breath. “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 state- ment 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, af- ter 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 ‘Good- night 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’s 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 band- mates 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 con- nection 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 mo- ments 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 RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 3 – JULY 16, 2023 18