Local Gold is the result of a years long labor of love—a documentary effort hatched by three friends, bandmates, and record nerds from Sacramento, West Sacramento, and Davis, California.
Catalyzed by the chance discovery of a 45 rpm record in a local thrift store, the music on this largely forgotten local record label sent us on an enthusiastic journey of discovery into the Sacramento region’s often murky musical past.
Local Gold represents an effort to document the treasures we’ve found along the way, and share them with listeners interested in the musical heritage of the Capitol of the Golden State. Our first season is composed of five episodes focused on locally connected country, rock, and jazz acts from the 1950s to the 1980s. Whenever possible, we feature the relevant results of our research, interviews with the original artists and other key contemporaries, rare and obscure tracks digitized from 45 and LP records, radio transcriptions, and personal home recordings. We even include vintage local radio advertisements for flavor.
Local Gold is hosted by Patrick Skiffington, engineered by Mark Pollock, and produced by John Fogerty.
Patrick Skiffington
Patrick ‘Junior’ Skiffington is the on-air host of the program and the driving force behind Local Gold. A man of many talents, Patrick keeps the wolves from the door working in state government, but his true vocation is music.
A multi-instrumentalist musician, raconteur, and bonafide expert in traditional jazz generally—and the west coast trad revival scene in particular—his washboard jazz antics are featured in local favorites The Crescent Katz and The FreeBadge Serenaders. He also makes time to saw fiddle in an old time stringband, The Miner Flatts. Patrick’s ‘aggressive appreciation’ is the rocket fuel in Local Gold’s tank.
Mark Pollock
Mark is an elementary school teacher by day, but our saintly Jack-Of-All-Trades Sound Engineer the rest of the time. He handles virtually all of the technical stuff—recording, wire, editing, computers, cables, microphones, bluetooth stuff, and nostalgic tugs.
Trust us, we’d be talking into cans and humming the music to you over a rotary dial telephone if it weren’t for Mark’s enduring patience, technical know-how, and gigantic neon green cursor.
John Fogerty
Local Gold is produced by John, who not knowing what producers are actually supposed do, spends most of his time telling jokes, cussing, pointing at stuff and helping in whatever way he can.
Other than that, he conducts much of the research on episode subjects, tracks down and acquires content and primary and secondary source materials, makes contacts, arranges interviews, promotes the show, and handles our social media presence.
Honestly though, it’s mostly jokes.
Local Gold 