Just Us Folk

Growing up near the shores of Lake Erie in Ontario, Tracy McNeil was surrounded by music. Her parents had been in bands together before Tracy was born in 1974. Soon enough she started her own career in music and in 2006 released her first album, Room Where She Lives.

“I launched it in Toronto and three days later I packed a suitcase and went to Australia,” she said.

The plan was to spend 10 months going to teacher's college before returning home for a job in education.

“But I got to Australia and thought it was amazing,” she said. “The music was so inspiring, the community was so welcoming, and I said to myself, ‘I’m not leaving!’”

Tracy was speaking at last year’s Folk Music Ontario conference with her partner Dan Parsons, who together are Minor Gold. Their self-titled debut album was released in 2023. They quickly won a Queensland Music Award for a song on the album, ‘Cannonball’.

“I built my career in music over there so Canada is a new territory for us. I’m re-discovering my homeland.”

Tracy’s first Australian album was No Time To Die, which she recorded with Jordie Lane as the duo Fireside Bellows. Her first solo album, Fire From Burnings, came out in 2011. By 2014, Tracy released Nobody Ever Leaves and began touring with her band The GoodLife. Dan joined The GoodLife around 2019 as a guitarist and co-producer for 2020’s You Be The Lightning.

During her time in Australia, Tracy’s been nominated for numerous music industry awards, twice winning Best Country album, for 2016’s Thieves and in 2020 for You Be The Lightning.

Then the Covid lockdown changed everything.

“We never had the chance to do any songwriting together up until then”, said Dan. “But Covid happened, we were living in a van and we sought refuge at my parent’s farm in Queensland, and that’s when we started writing.” 

Taking their mother’s maiden names, Tracy and Dan formed Minor Gold and haven’t looked back since their debut performance at the 2023 Port Fairy Folk Festival.

The songs on Minor Gold’s album reflect both the need to escape from the environment that holds you back and also the emotional lockdown they’d both been dealing with.

“So it was physical and emotional escapism," said Dan.

With five solo albums each to their names, co-writing was something new for the duo.

“But that was the cool thing," said Tracy. “When we started to write it fell into place easily.”

Tracy sees their common influences as a big reason for that. As for their individual methods for writing, that’s a different story.

“Tracy’s great for writing in the car, whether it’s melodies and lyrics,” Dan said. “I love to have a guitar in my hands.”

Minor Gold have prepared themselves for touring in North America. They purchased a 1999 Astro van in British Columbia, found a garage to store it on each coast and are able to make their careers work as a duo.

What they’ve also found is that touring in Canada is very similar to touring in Australia, what with long distances separating large urban centres.

“It’s almost identical," said Dan. “It’s a massive continent but you’ve got limited resources.”

Minor Gold’s North American tour last year started in February with an official showcase at the Folk Alliance International conference in Kansas City. March was spent in Canada, writing material for their next album. Once April arrived, they started touring the U.S., going from New York State across to California twice before heading to British Columbia, They finished things up in October at the Folk Music Ontario conference before heading back to Australia.

“It’s been amazing," said. Tracy.

The upcoming new album was recorded last July in Los Angeles but as of last year’s interview there were still a couple of songs needed to fill it out.

Already this year Minor Gold has showcased at the Your Roots Are Showing conference in Ireland and at UK Americana Music Week in England. Further touring includes dates in Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark and England. Once the UK and European appearances are done they’ll head back to Canada for this year’s Folk Alliance conference in Montreal before touring across North America in support of the new album.

For more on Minor Gold, go to https://www.minorgoldmusic.com.