Events for February 2025 › Blues

Living Blues’ Best Debut Artist Award
Blues Music Award nomination for Best Debut Artist

Born St. Louis, Mo, Marquise hails from a musical family deeply rooted in the Blues. He learned how to play guitar from his grandmother Lillie. He also played with his uncle Clifford, who was a major influence in Marquise’s life. For Marquise, Blues is his heritage and way of life. He spent his early teenage years in St. Louis mentoring under the late great Blues legend, N.E.A. (National Endowment of the Arts) Heritage Fellowship recipient and Grammy Award winner Henry James Townsend. Marquise’s talents have earned him performing rights with some of America’most notable blues performers such as blues legends B.B. King, Pinetop Perkins and David “Honeyboy” Edwards (the latter two also N.E.A. Heritage Fellows). He has also performed at dozens of festivals, and has toured all throughout Europe.

2020: San Diego International Blues Competition (IBC) winner.  Lafayette Falkquay doesn’t just play the Blues.  The Blues plays him.  He’s carries the music in his soul and sings it with the emotional depth that made Blues what it is.  As Lafayette says, “You gotta get grown to play the blues. I think blues is an experience. It’s not just copying someone and playing licks. It’s finding that sound that comes from within you.”

Lafayette was raised in Austin, TX where he began playing at a young age and then later played the local Austin circuit for many years.  When he got to San Diego, he was quickly recognized as a rare and “real blues man” with his band Lafayette and The Lease Breakers.  He now fronts the Lafayette Blues Band and continues his legacy of pure, passionate, down-home Texas-style blues.