Recorded over five days in an undisclosed location in LOCATION CLASSIFIED, MO, and then added to and mastered in Australia, ‘Kansas City Gold’ is the kind of thing you couldn’t plan if you were trying. We had written songs to pitch to local Old School KC Artists, hoping to get one or two recorded during a brief stay in KC. Stranded by QANTAS and aided by a Volunteer engineer, the sessions quickly turned into a madcap dash to get as many of the songs recorded as possible. Stormcellar cut beds with guide vocals as a host of KC’s living legend players came in, chose a song or recorded some of their own, or both. Local KC Legend Millage Gilbert cut four tracks in quick succession with Stormcellar as his backing band, including an unrecorded Millage Gilbert original Blues track, a true rarity. Ron Teamer provided an original duet with Jo Fitzgerald from Stormcellar, with Max Groove adding gospel keyboards; beloved local Danny Cox recorded the Constitutionally Themed ‘We The People’, written specifically for him, and there were additional tracks written for KC Kelsey, a duet for Danny & D.C. Bellamy…and then we ran out of time and had to go back to Australia. 9 months of ‘full and frank’ discussion were needed to complete the album as the Kansas City Hustle met the Sydney Sidestep in amusing musical argument, resulting in some re-recording, some help from one of Australia’s top mastering engineers and a whole lot of Cultural Exchange. The nett result is a staggering work, somehow managing to walk out of a time warp from 1960’s Blues to 1970’s Soul, to modern interpretations of classic styles from a bunch of Aussies. Oi! Sonically, it’s a combination of Modern Studios and Bizarre Old Tech out of Skywalker sound. It’s too bonkers to contemplate. You know ‘that’ sound you get from old original blues records? Well, it’s here, on Millage’s tracks. Danny’s song ‘we the people’ sounds like it’s been pulled straight off Sesame Street circa 1974, except for the exhortation to ‘get off your a** and vote’. From a performance perspective, this album prioritises the KC stalwart players. As a song writing album, Stormcellar do the heavy lifting, from the socially themed ‘Chalk Angels’, about the death of Tamir Rice, to the over-the-top ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ This is a very human album, with the flaws left in, that captured a magical moment and carries forward the legacy of those people who truly are Kansas City’s gold. No Australians were harmed in the making of this album. Peace out. MJEB