“In a sea of manufactured dross, Minor Gold are the real deal” – Jeff Jenkins STACK
“Beautifully warm… cleverly not over-stuffed with instrumentation… timbre of their voices sit so beautifully together; if you like Tom Petty, Crosby Still and Nash, Nick Drake and Bruce Springteen than I think you will like what they are doing” – ABC Sydney
“…like Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham at the top of their game in songs like Don’t Change and Cannonball.” - Noel Mengel | LOUD MOUTH
Queensland Music Awards 2024
WINNER 2024 FOLK AWARD
Minor Gold - Cannonball
Opening for The Teskey Brothers in Chicago was Minor Gold, a fellow band from Australia comprised of Tracy McNeil and Dan Parsons whose Americana-folk harmonies could easily be mistaken for a band from late ‘60s or early ‘70s California. Their self-titled debut album is out now and is a testament to the power of subtly that is often lost in today’s over-produced quest for stardom.
Minor Gold – both the band and their album – are a breath of fresh air, standing on the merits of their songwriting and chemistry to deliver a beautifully refreshing collection of songs that further solidifies the importance of never missing an opening act.
AMERICAN BLUES SCENE
Way With Words
PBS 106.7FM FEATURE ALBUM
Week of AUG 14
Tracy McNeil describes the formation of Minor Gold as a "sidestep", but it's a duo she plans to take bounding forward. Minor Gold is McNeil and her partner and Good Life bandmate, Dan Parsons, who is also a titan of Melbourne's Americana scene with his own material.
"We got into that fairly early and it was painless. We seemed to have a real hand-in-glove connection with writing songs and singing and harmonising."
Minor Gold's first three singles support that claim. The country folk-flavoured Mona Lisa and Way With Words are both built around acoustic guitars and Parsons and McNeil's honeyed harmonies.
Mona Lisa | Honorable Mention
International Songwriting Competition 2022
AMERICANA - FULL LIST HERE
Minor Gold is a new duo comprised of musicians Tracy McNeil and Dan Parsons, and while 'Mona Lisa is their debut single, this is a musical combination that's endured for some time.
For the best part of a decade, the two have shared stages the world over. Notably, Parsons was a big contributor to McNeil's excellent 2020 album You Be The Lightning and this project sees the two artists on equal footing, further magnifying the power of this partnership.
There's not a lot going on in 'Mona Lisa': a gentle, barely-there drone, a gently strummed guitar, the very occasional splash of baritone guitar and hand percussion, two voices in perfect harmony, and that's about it.
It's all they need.
The strength of the songwriting, the performances, and the indeterminate perfection of how these two artists' voices lock in together through the entire song are enough to hit right where the emotions live inside us.
Living together, being with each other 24 hours a day even if it wasn’t in the van, helped that compatibility and offered that fuel. None of the songs, their leanings decidedly in the land of ‘70s pop, sounded like The Good Life songs, nor Dan Parsons songs: this was something new as the first single, Mona Lisa, revealed.
“The material we were writing was getting us excited,” says Parsons. “And we decided we were going to try and push it up the hill and see if it rolled.”
Reader: it rolled.
If there is a thematic centre to Minor Gold it is escape...
But escape wasn’t into a void, it was into cleaner, fresher … brighter climes.