I’ve written about Mark Fox and the creepy ‘child’ Lil’ Markie before, but I’ve just found a copy of his third album Little Bits for Children Everywhere and felt compelled to share it with you.This time credited to ‘Mark Fox Featuring Little Markie’ (although, according to the label, this travesty is entirely down to Little Markie himself), and housed in a sleeve that’s a complete rip off of the posthumous Elvis collection Sings For Children… and Grownups Too! - right down to the colours of the Crayola crayons - Little Bits features Pastor Mark Fox duetting with his inner child on a half dozen tracks on side one, with the flip given over to his famous Story of an Alcoholic Father discourse. Elvis
If you had only heard, but not seen, Lil’ Markie you'd be forgiven for thinking that he was a pudgy, apple-cheeked nine year-old, sweetly singing his way through life with songs about Jesus – but Markie is, in fact, the creation of adult evangelist Mark Fox, who uses his ability to switch between his own voice and a terrifying, childish, Donald Duck-esque falsetto to sing cautionary Christian tales with titles such as the aforementioned Story Of An Alcoholic Father (Something's Happened To Daddy), I Will Obey The Lord and the incredibly vile Diary Of An Unborn Child - the story of a foetus, from conception to abortion; a disgusting diatribe based on an article which originally appeared in a Jehovah's Witness magazine. It’s all very Baby Lu-Lu.Mark/Lil’ Markie/Little Markie released a slew of similarly insane ramblings, many through his own Mark Fox Family Ministries company. He also briefly recorded under his own name, issuing the gospel album Let The Son Shine In: on the back cover he is described as'a personable young man who communicates Christ through his music.' The not-so-fantastic Mr Fox even had his own public access TV show for a while. I assume that the majority of people tuning in to his programme would have reached for the phone to call 911 as soon as Mark stopped singing in his usual pleasant baritone and started screeching like a lisping simpleton for fear that the evangelist had actually swallowed and was choking to death on a Tickle Me Elmo doll. He’s a ventriloquist without a dummy (unless you count those in his audience that is), a scary enough concept in itself.
Many of the tracks on the Lil’ Markie/Little Markie/Mark Fox albums were written by Rick and Rosemary Wilhelm, regular performers on the Christian Baptist church circuit, who released their own eponymous album in 1977. The couple are still active today. Mark Fox is still about too, troubling people in churches around the United States with his insane alter ego.
Anyway, judge for yourself after you listen to a couple of tracks from Little Bits for Children Everywhere – the medley of B-O-R-N A-G-A-I-N/For God So Loved The World and the ‘duet’ J-E-S-U-S. ‘Little’ Marcy Tigner must be turning in her grave.
Enjoy!