Local ‘Ranching taught me a lot about life’
...I feel that when I came back to music after that, when I put out the Gift Horse record, ranching taught me a lot about life and how to go to a different phase of my music career.
— Barney Bentall
Bentall was a man split by two full-time, all-consuming careers.
“I did have cattle for about six years but I found it’s hard to keep the music thing going and also keep a ranch going,” he said.
“But I learned so much and I got such an appreciation for the people who do it, live on the land... I feel that when I came back to music after that, when I put out the Gift Horse record, ranching taught me a lot about life and how to go to a different phase of my music career.”
He got nationally large on the strength of classic rock hits like Life Could Be Worse, Crime Against Love, Something To Live For and the modern rock staple Do Ya. He and his band The Legendary Hearts were equated to Canada’s version of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
Since he moved from the Vancouver urban sprawl into the Cariboo grasslands, though, he has taken in the clean dirt and fresh air and grown another attitude for music.
The rock will always be there, but he also formed The High Bar Gang with some well-known players like Shari Ulrich and Colin Nairne, but this group is all about bluegrass. They just won a Juno Award for that roots work.
Bentall’s latest album is called The Drifter & The Preacher, biographical references to his father-in-law and dad respectively.
His father-in-law was also the subject for the first single off the album called The Miner since the man used to pan for gold in the Cariboo after the Second World War.
The single is a duet with Bentall’s son Dustin who has his own roots-rock career now underway. One of Bentall’s daughters is a member of the Kootenay trio Wild Honey when she’s not busy on her own farm.
It’s never been easy to make a living as a musician, Bentall said, but he has encouraged the artistic pursuits of his kids because they understand the balance between rock star expectations foisted on musicians by society and the realistic benefits of music if you keep literally connected to the earth.
Prince George has long been a special place on Bentall’s personal map, so he is excited to be part of this unique community gathering. He said back in his beginnings, all the musicians in the Lower Mainland considered this city the place you had to go to make your true mark. It was one thing to impress the insular audiences around Vancouver, but the cabarets of Prince George were filled with bluecollar and largely indifferent people who would express their approval but also express their disapproval and indifference if you just didn’t have the goods. He said he didn’t believe he could be a national music star until the night he and the Legendary Hearts opened for Doug & The Slugs at the Coliseum in P.G. and finally got that honest, P.G. validation.
“There’s kind of a collective celebration when that happens, especially if you’re open to it,” he said about being a performing musician (as opposed to a songwriter who never goes on stage).
“Some people just mail it in, but you can tell. When you’re open to it, there’s a bit of a contract going on, where, as the artist, you’re the first one extending your hand for this handshake deal, and if the people give back it just keeps escalating and you have a really great musical experience. But it has to start with the artist, I think.”
The artists today include DJ Ant to start things off, some words from mayor Lyn Hall and other dignitaries, then Bentall and Glass Tiger.
The events get underway at 4 p.m. all at Canada Games Plaza and it is free of charge to attend.