Remembering Marques Bovre

We are greatly saddened with the loss of Madison musician Marques Bovre. A letter from Triple M Program Director Pat Gallagher, friend of Marques.
 

Sometime between Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, my Facebook news feed turned from the usual rantings about politics, sports and kittens to a continuous feed of Marques Bovre stories and lyrics.  The news hit on Monday afternoon that Marques had died that morning.  When I got home from work Monday night, Laura and I loaded up the CD player (yes – we still have a 50 disc changer) with MBET CDs, opened a bottle of wine and toasted Marques. 

Then we started sharing stories—Laura, the Facebook community and I—stories of the first time I met Marques, how Marques was responsible for Biff getting his gig with the Reptile Palace Orchestra, various shows at the Crystal, Club Tavern, Taste of Madison, Summerfest, etc.   And of course, if you know Marques, you know that all the stories ended by remembering what a genuine, down-to-earth, good guy he was.

There's one story I didn’t share on Facebook, but it is an amazing story of the healing power of Marques’ music.  It happened at the High Noon Saloon: a show to pay tribute to Marques, with several area musicians playing his songs and then Marques himself playing with SoDangYang and finishing the night with a reunited Evil Twins.  At the time of this show, my wife had been suffering from Thyroid Eye Disease for about two years.  The disease had caused her eyes to bulge out in two different directions and consequently she had double vision—always.  As you can imagine, this was tough to deal with, and dealing with it for two years was a bit depressing. 

Through that evening, I sat on the stairs at the side of the stage, jumping up on stage between acts to thank everyone and introduce the artists.  Laura sat off to the side, with Marques —joking with him about the complexity of his lyrics.  Then Marques hit the stage. Cancer had obviously taken its toll on him; he sat in an easy chair for the whole show, often reading from lyric sheets.  But the music was amazing.  And the sold-out crowd ate it up!  And Laura smiled like I hadn’t seen in two years.  And that beautiful smile stayed on her face all night.

Laura and I went for dinner after the show and I told her what I saw. She responded “I was 27 again and everything was okay.”
Thanks Marques.
 
Pat Gallagher

Dandelion - Recorded in Live From Studio M in October 2012.