REV. MARV WARD
Poet, Songwriter, Guitarist
Rev. Marv Ward
Experience the soulful sounds of a seasoned blues artist.
- Blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and poet, Rev. Marv Ward grew up in the small town of Lorton, Virginia. He played his first gig at 10 and started performing professionally at age 16. He's played in literally dozens of bands over the past 63 years and has secured his place among bluesmen with his straight-forward no-nonsense blues style. It's a little bit Delta, a little bit Piedmont, a whole lot of R&B, but mostly, it's straight up Rev. Marv Ward. The Rev. has played his original and visionary blues stylings in venues all over the country and has shared stages with music legends such as Aerosmith, Joan Baez, Dave Van Ronk, Paul Geremia, Maria Muldaur, Nappy Brown, John Hammond, Bob Margolin, Big Bill Morganfield, Mac Arnold, Mooky Brill and many more. Listed in An Encyclopedia of South Carolina Jazz and Blues Musicians, Ward writes poetry with the same passion that he composes his songs. He has three collections of poetry now published “One Lone Minstrel, “Healing Time,” and his latest “Bar Stool Poet”, to go along with his six published solo CD’s. Ward lives in Columbia, South Carolina. He previously served in the United States Naval Reserve and has worked in broadcast and educational television throughout North and South Carolina. At age 79“, The Rev.” is still going strong performing with local ensembles “Wallstreet and The Blues Brokers,” Jelly Roll and Delicious Dish,” and occasionally with the “Shrimp City Allstars” and still writing. A holiday CD and perhaps a fourth book are in the works.
In 2016 blues musician, singer, and songwriter "Reverend" Marv Ward was documented inAn Encylopedia of South Carolina Jazz & Blues Musiciansby Benjamin Franklin V
Explore Rev. Marv Ward's WORDS & Music
Ward writes poetry with the same passion that he composes his songs. He has three collections of poetry now published “One Lone Minstrel, “Healing Time,” and his latest “Bar Stool Poet”, to go along with his six published solo CD’s
Marv Ward's Poetry
Tim Conroy said this about Ward’s poetry: Lives are not shorn of hope even when our faces are unrecognizable in reflected waters. Self-doubt and seasons of despair are soothed in Marv Ward’s feverish collection, “Healing Time.” Questions chase you through his poem entitled, “Are we there yet?” What follows is the bafflement of answering “Where are we now?” Like many of us, the poet wants to know “who the hell is driving the bus?"
Fellow travelers, Marv leads this soul-infected journey in verse and prayer with a heart strummed hard and with a redeeming through words. In the poem, “Calendar” he reveals, “fascination with times unceasing/and unyielding passing is the only truth we hold.” In “Carnival of Love” we ride
“the tilt-a-whirl of longing.” We hear “the ocean’s roar” in “Blue Moonlight” and watch the tidal shift in the line “the morning after the night before.” In these poems there is delirium but also fertile reminders of the openness we must hold onto. In his poem, “Autumn”, the poet implores, “listen to the whippoorwill’s call for seeds to be planted.”
Marv is a believer of dreams, of passion and of love, of Morpheus, of the mysteries of time, but also of bedevilment and encumbrances. He scribbles truth like a diarist in “As I lay here tonight” and reveals, “I search for a space/where our hearts/could meet as one, hold each other/and dance across the eternal abyss/to the music of the spheres.” In the poem, “Hitchhiker” he balances the past and future with, “the baggage I carry contains my choices” with “I long to be unfettered.” In the title poem, “Healing Time,” he whispers for damaged souls, “…the time for healing/had begun.” His poem, “Into the Unexpected” escorts us through the dark corridor,” while the short piercing “Libretto” leaves us “gaping in wonder/never knowing the truth.”
The triumphant refrain is that regardless of pain, loss, dust, longing, somehow, we remain who we are supposed to be. All we have is our ability to give thanks when “night looms” and to move forward in our “endeavor to persevere.” After reading “First Thursday,” we can’t help but feel that to reach true destinations, it is best to “wander/ aimlessly.” This collection is piping with sound; wails, a steam-released instrument where the calliope cautions “the desperate heart/knows no fear/but is afraid to be alone.” Marv Ward wounds and heals with a luring voice.
Marv Ward has had his poetry published in other collections, anthologys and magazines