Mega Kelly Live Double LP Vinyl (2021)

February, two thousand, eighteen. 

Reckless Kelly is settling in to the friendly confines of Arlyn Studios in our hometown of Austin Texas. We’re making a new album, American Jackpot. The concept simply being songs about American stories, themes, its inhabitants, its geography, and its history. 

We tracked the record as a band and invited over a dozen fellow musicians to play and contribute to the recordings. We were having fun, letting the songs come into themselves without much real effort, and making good time. 

As the project was coming to an end, we had a few extra days of studio time leftover so being the sole producer of an album for the first time in Reckless Kelly history, I started finishing half-baked songs I had lying around and bringing them in the next day to record, thinking we’d use up the remaining studio days and maybe have a few leftover tracks to use somewhere down the road. This led to a problem- we liked all of the songs and didn’t want to leave any on the cutting room floor, but also didn’t want to abandon the original concept of the American experience. These other songs weren’t necessarily about America. 

After careful consideration and not much debate, a new concept was born. American Girls- the sister album to American Jackpot, which would only need a few more songs to complete, most of which, guitar slinger de jour, Jeff Crosby and I wrote while on tour over the summer. We booked a few more days at Arlyn and finished the second record. American Jackpot & American Girls were in the can.  

Little did we know that the world was about to be turned upside down due to Covid 19. 

After our last gig as a band in March of 2020, we went our separate ways, thinking we’d be back in the saddle in a month or two, or at the latest, by early summer, and proceeded as planned, releasing the double album in May of 2020. 

As fate would have it, we were not able to return to performing live shows for 446 days, longer than any of us had ever been off the road since childhood. 

By spring of 2021, it was looking like we’d be able to resume touring by June, so in true RK fashion we decided that anything worth doing is worth overdoing, and we called our friends Geoff Queen, Bukka Allen, Eleanor Whitmore, and  Chris Masterson, all of whom had lent their talents to the double album, and Mega Kelly was born. 

We rehearsed for three days and then recorded and shot some video with our friends at The Next Waltz. Two weeks later we gathered for our first of 4 live shows together to play the songs from American jackpot and American girls. We recorded and filmed two sweaty nights at Gruene Hall and the weekend after that we recorded and filmed a pair of shows from The Kessler Theatre in Dallas and the Heights Theatre in Houston. The project you’re about to see are all true live performances and feature a combination of shots and highlights from all 4 of those shows. 

Our intention for these performances was to simply have fun playing music with our good friends who’d helped mold the songs in their humble beginnings 

There are a few clams here and there but we wanted to keep it live and real, knowing our fans would enjoy the vibe and join us in celebrating being back on stage playing together live, for the first time, the songs of American Jackpot and American girls.

Mega Kelly Live 

Side A:

1. Ragged 
   
2. American Jackpot
3. American Girls

4. Only See You With My Eyes Closed

Side B:

Side C:

1. Miss Marissa
2. I Hold The Bottle
3. Anyplace That's Wild

Side D:

1. Lonesome On My Own
2. Good Bye Colorado
3. Mona