Anyone can wear a cowboy hat, but Ridley Bent (l) and Corb Lund (r) are carrying the torch for self-respecting country fans across Canada

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Corb Lund with Ridley Bent
Corral
Saturday, November 7 - Saturday, November 7

More in: Folk / Country

You may have noticed lately that a lot of what’s being proffered as country music really isn’t country music. Rather, it’s something more akin to twang-flavoured pop, with all the production excesses that make contemporary radio so hard to listen to. It’s been nearly 60 years since hillbilly country bumped uglies with rhythm and blues and over a decade since their bastard son, rock ’n’ roll, abdicated its crown as the genre king of contemporary radio. Still, traditional roots-based music continues to grow and breed avid new audiences.

Taber born and corn-fed, Corb Lund first pounded stages as bassist for The Smalls, a hard-rockin’ Edmonton favourite that never quite fulfilled its commercial promise. By the time The Smalls played its final show in 2001, Lund had already released two solo country albums. His connection with cowboy culture is downright genetic — Lund’s mother was a champion barrel racer and, as a kid, he rode and later wrestled steers. “That’s the family heritage — my great-grandpas and my grandpas and my dad and my mom and my cousins are all rodeo people,” he says. “I miss it sometimes, but I’m pretty happy with what I’m doing.”

The new disc, Losin’ Lately Gambler, touches on all the standard country song subjects and lays sod on a few new ones (like veterinary medicine) in the opener, “Horse Doctor, Come Quick.”

“My dad’s a veterinarian so I know all the lingo,” Lund explains. “There’s been a lot of stories about people getting various drugs from vets. That’s kind of the back door way in, but speed is speed and opiates are opiates.”

Gambler is Lund’s first release on New West Records, a larger American label whose roster is home to such country icons as Kris Kristofferson, Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakam. As the album name implies, gambling — specifically poker — is another of Lund’s passions, even if he hasn’t indulged much recently. “I haven’t actually been playing as much cards lately because I’ve been too busy with music,” he says. “It’s the same with horses: The more I sing about it, the less time I get to do it.”

Like-minded country crooner Ridley Bent is riding with Lund for the second time this tour, this time with a full band backing him. As Bent puts it, “[Lund’s] got the kind of crowd I want to play for. I want to make his fans my fans.” The odds of that happening seem pretty strong.

While Bent’s cowboy DNA may not be as hard-wired as Lund’s, his credibility as a country artist is beyond question. Despite having recently relocated from Vancouver to Winnipeg, Bent cleaned house at this year’s B.C. Country Music Awards, winning seven out of nine nominated categories for his latest disc, Buckles and Boots.

Bent’s first disc, Blam, pioneered “Hick Hop,” an infectious mix of rhymes and rhythms that sounded a bit like Buck 65 meets Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen. For Buckles, Bent has gone full-on country and it has paid off in spades.

“I was writing so many country songs that I just decided to do a whole record of country and, since I released that, it’s been going so well, I haven’t had time for the other,” he says. “Once you get a band backing you up and they sound seriously country, you kind of can’t deny that you’re putting on a country show.”

Though artistically, Bent and Lund may be a perfect pair, at the card table, the odds are far less even. “He’s a better poker player than I am,” Bent readily admits. “I like to think of myself as a good poker player, but he’s got some skills. He’s out of my league.”

Bent figures he has enough material written for two more country albums and another record of rhymes, and he’s already about to record the first followup. “A week after we finish with Corb, we’ve got four days booked at the Factory in Vancouver — we’re expecting to go in and get 12 or 13 songs done,” he says optimistically.

That excess of material will help Lund with a project he’s considering that would give a little back to some of his lesser-known peers, Bent included. “One thing I’m doing next year, or at least trying to, is, I want to make a record called Songs My Friend Wrote and put it out between my regular records,” Lund says. “It’s going to be me singing songs by all my songwriting buddies. It would be like the opposite of a tribute album. I’m in a position where I’m kind of like the gateway drug for a lot of alt.country listeners.”