50 Years Ago, Cowtown Ballroom Ruled An Era In Kansas City

Press release from the Kansas City Public Library:

July 9, 2021

When the history of rock ’n’ roll in Kansas City is written — if it’s written — the year that will figure most prominently likely will be 1971.

Fifty years ago, Good Karma Productions, Danny Cox, Brewer & Shipley, “One Toke Over the Line” and the freshly opened Cowtown Ballroom intertwined in a way that defined an era.

“What’s Your KCQ?,” The Star’s ongoing series with the Kansas City Public Library, decided to dig deeper into that chapter of our local music history. KCQ typically answers readers’ queries about our region, but several responses to our earlier KCQ on the Pla-Mor Ballroom and its evolution into the concert hall Freedom Palace inspired this story.

The story also is timely. Cowtown Ballroom opened in midtown July 16, 1971, and 50th anniversary celebrations are planned over the next several months, including a concert featuring Cox and others July 18 (which happens to be his 78th birthday) at Knuckleheads.

First, back to 1971.

As the American military fought a seemingly never-ending war in Vietnam and opposition roiled at home, rock music became a major factor in the political climate (check out the new documentary on Apple TV+, 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything).

Kansas City joined that rock music revolution.

Still, the city was more of a jazz and blues mecca than a rock haven. The fact that Brewer & Shipley’s “One Toke Over the Line,” essentially a joke song celebrating marijuana, is arguably the biggest rock-era hit by a Kansas City act gives you an idea about that era’s relative stature.

Suffice it to say, we didn’t produce rock stars comparable to Kansas City jazz legends Count Basie, Charlie Parker and Bennie Moten. But thanks especially to Brewer & Shipley and the Cowtown Ballroom, Kansas City did briefly make a splash on the national music scene.

The most enduring component of Kansas City’s 1971 music scene, however, has been Cox.

Danny Cox talks and sings about the summer of love

If things had gone differently, Cox might have become the lead singer for Steely Dan. Or he (not Frank Sinatra) might have ridden a recording of “That’s Life” to fame and fortune in 1966.

Instead, he left California and landed in Kansas City, where his career as a rare Black folk musician blossomed. Cox recorded multiple albums and became a Kansas City institution on the music scene and, more recently, in the theater world. But he never had a big single or a huge national profile.

And Cox is fine with all of it.

“There’s a line from a song I wrote, it just says, ‘No matter where you started from, the roads you took along the way, all roads brought us here together today,’” he said. “If I had done anything differently in my life, I would not have my beautiful 10 children, my lovely wife and our 18 grandchildren.”

Cox was there for the creation of Good Karma and the opening of Cowtown, where he played his jazz-and-blues-infused folk music on the same lineups with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Poco and even the Kansas City Philharmonic (now the Kansas City Symphony).

“There were so many wonderful acts that came through there,” he said. “Steely Dan came through there.

“I was going to be the lead singer for Steely Dan. We had the same record company, and they didn’t like the way their voices sounded. And I thought, to this day, how can they not be Steely Dan without the voices they have? They’re so unique. I said, ‘Nah, these guys got their own thing.’ And I’m glad that I said no. They went on to become one of the greatest acts in show biz.”

His “That’s Life” moment had arrived when he lived and recorded in Los Angeles. A record company imported Ed Kleban, later to become the Tony Award-winning lyricist of “A Chorus Line,” to produce an album with Cox.

“He really knew how to make Broadway productions,” Cox said. “They brought him to Los Angeles to see if he could make pop hits.”

Kleban’s collaboration with Cox produced music that was “Broadway hot but not pop hot,” and Kleban and the record company decided not to release the album.

This press release was produced by the Kansas City Public Library. The views expressed here are the author’s own.