Will You Be There

(Missouri) A native of Baldwin, Mississippi, piano player Bill McAnally established his professional bona fides plunking the keys in Memphis before moving to Kansas City in 1963, where he cut this rough-hewn hard-country album using all-local talent and the production crew at the Cavern Sound studios, a regional powerhouse that recorded numerous artists in the KC area. The music is great and although McAnally was a pretty crude vocalist, there's immense authenticity and charm to his chunky barroom style, which varies between a Mickey Gilley piano-thumper vibe and more straightforward old-school honky-tonk. The repertoire is almost all honkytonk cover tunes, with one song by McAnally ("One More Time") and the title track, "Will You Be There," written by producer Lee Miller. Swell stuff! (slipcue.com)