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The son of a pastor and a piano player, singer Marc Martel’s musical journey started in church and has taken him to big stages where, when he’s not performing his original music, he’s invoking one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most hallowed voices — that of Freddie Mercury.
Martel will perform with Queen tribute The Ultimate Queen Celebration at 8 p.m. Saturday at the F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre.
No stranger to fronting Queen projects, Martel has handled vocals for the Queen Extravaganza — the official Queen tribute started by Queen founders Roger Taylor and Brian May — since 2012, but he didn’t always envision himself as the stand-in for the late, iconic Mercury.
“I did not grow up listening to to Queen,” Martel said.
But when Martel’s band Downhere, which was signed to a Nashville record label in 2001 and was active for 13 years, began reaching wider audiences, fans frequently pointed out Martel’s uncanny vocal resemblance to one revered frontman.
“It was never Barry Manilow,” Martel joked.
After the regular comparison to Mercury, Martel began delving into Queen’s catalogue.
“The music is incredible, and they’re one of the greatest bands of all time, but I never thought it would be a part of my life more than admiring their work,” he said. “Queen is a big part of what I do these days.”
In 2011, when Taylor and May held a singing competition to find the right vocalist for the Queen Extravaganza, Martel answered the casting call and was selected to front the band.
“To this day, I have to pinch myself that that ever happened,” Martel said. “The guy at the drums (Taylor) behind the greatest performer of 20 years said, ‘If you close your eyes, it was like Freddie was in the room.’”
That honor is not lost on Martel, who said he’s in awe of how hard Mercury pushed himself and utilized his voice in live and studio performances.
“He was able to give all of himself to 100,000 people,” Martel said. “It’s motivated me to push myself harder.”
Although he’s toured widely and is still involved with the Queen Extravaganza, Martel launched The Ultimate Queen Celebration project in March.
“I get a little more artistic freedom in this show,” Martel said. “I feel like I have a good feel for how Freddy interpreted the music. Later in life, he branched out and did his own things, a few covers and some opera. I’ll pick a couple of songs that I wish Freddy recorded in his lifetime and perform them in his style.”
Martel said it’s “a pleasure” to continue the legacy of Queen in any way he can and that it’s “incredible” to walk onto a stage where everyone in the audiences knows the songs as well as he does.
And although he’s “happy to be mentioned in the same sentence” as May and Taylor, he also finds time to work on his original music.
The powerful vocalist has started a Kickstarter campaign, accessible at tinyurl.com/yco5d2hm, to help him afford his next two records, an album of covers and another of Christmas songs.