>>PREVIEW
BLUEBIRD NORTH
Barney Bentall, Melanie Doane, Jeremy Fisher, Jenny Whitely and Blair Packham
Saturday, January 20
Southwood United Church
Following your nose is one way of finding your Zen. That’s apparent in talking to British Columbia songwriter Barney Bentall, whose band The Legendary Hearts earned five gold records in the late ’80s and early ’90s, selling over 10 million albums and enjoying hits like "Life Could Be Worse." Bentall eased out of the music scene to run his cattle ranch upland from Vancouver, cutting live shows down to about 25 gigs per year.
His first album in eight years, The Gift Horse, is partly produced by Jim Cuddy, whose Blue Rodeo pals Greg Keelor and Glenn Milchem also join in. Novelist Guy Vanderhaeghe, whose The Last Crossing and The Englishman’s Boy tease readers with startling historical truths regarding the prairies, lends his writing talents to the album while Bentall’s son Dustin adds a few vocals. How do you put together such an eclectic bunch of talent? Just follow your nose, says Bentall.
Of jumping into the deep end of the music business again with an album and tour, Bentall says, "It wasn’t scary. I kept playing, and really eight years between records is not that long. It seems like a long time in your own career, but I did a couple of shows with Tom Cochrane and we talked about that; it was seven years for him. You realize you’ve got to get out there and get momentum going again."
This should be easier to do in Alberta and B.C., where Bentall has continued to perform. It was nearly impossible for him to get out to places like Ontario while running his cattle ranch, which he has leased out to neighbours for now.
Nudges to get recording again came from long-time friend Cuddy, who offered Blue Rodeo’s talents as enticement.
"Back in the early days, when our careers were starting up, we’d both been married for a long time and our kids were growing up. If you’re talking 15 years ago that was quite unusual (within the music industry). We were our own little support group."
When Bentall decided to write songs with Vanderhaeghe, it seemed a stretch. "I’ve always followed my nose, just like herding cattle and trying to find them, you basically just follow your nose and trust your instinct. I got to know Guy just after I’d read The Englishman’s Boy. I thought it would be really cool to write a song with this guy, but how? My wife said why don’t you phone him and I said I’m not going to get his number, (but) I just looked him up in the phone book and he was there.
"So there was no excuse. I called him and he was really taken aback, but I tried it with him. He said he had a tin ear so I said, ‘that’s OK, let’s just write lyrics together.’ He was writing prose, long and complicated and I would kid him and say it’s just rock ’n’ roll!"
The songs on Gift Horse follow their noses, too, meandering down a path flanked by Bentall’s earlier urban-kissed sound, but now seasoned by rural rhythms. These are songs born of hundreds of pre-dawn hours spent under stars during calving season, waiting for nature to take its course. Bentall’s balance between rural and urban pleases him – he is completely comfortable in downtown Vancouver, yet would not flinch to pull a calf out of the birth canal.
"Even when I was touring all the time, (living and) playing in big cities, you spend a lot of time driving through the countryside to get to the next show." |
Copyright ©2007 FFWD. All rights reserved.