There is no dust on Barney Bentall. He is excited to come back to Lethbridge to bring music and raise money for Youth One as the Cariboo Express rolls into Lethbridge, Nov. 7 at Southminster United Church for the Geomatic Attic.
Bentall had a handful of hits in the ’90s including “ Life Could Be Worse,” and Something to Live For,” but he has evolved into a Juno award winning country and roots musician, who has released two albums this year including “Cosmic Dreamer”, produced his daughter’s band’s album and spends time working up north.
He has been supporting community charities with The Cariboo Express since 2006.
Lethbridge is among the 10 Cariboo Express shows happening this fall.
“ We will have local guy Ryland Moranz who’s a just a great musician and from that area. Ridley Bent, my son Dustin Bentall , Stephanie Cadman who is an incredible fiddler and dancer and my son’s band who are kind of a bluegrassy band the Blue Wranglers, they’ll be there,” Bentall said.
This year’s Cariboo Express also features Matt Masters, Wendy Bird, Geoff Hicks, Rob Becker, Geoffrey Kelly, Scott Smith, Geoff Holhorst, Jamielynn Caswell and Dan Fremlin
“It’ll be the usual thing. The shows have always been so fantastic there. It’s just wonderful,” he said.
This Old West‐inspired troupe helmed by Barney Bentall, was established in 2006. Since then it has become a favourite annual touring event in Western Canada. Building on an Old West-inspired variety show, a typical Cariboo concert features a regular cast of some of Canada’s finest roots and country musicians each taking turns in the spotlight, collaborating, and warming the hearts of audiences with every stop they make. To date, the Cariboo Express has contributing over $2 million to worthwhile local causes.
“It’s a variety show, though that has the connotation of being cheesy, but it‘s not that way at all. There’s just so many artists. And we’re also doing this in support of Youth One which is a great charity there that supports youth. Which Lord knows they need a lot of that these days. So they get song sponsors to contribute to the charity. And we do have an element where my good friend Matt Masters is co-MCing with me and we give intros based on the companies or the individuals who sponsor songs. In which case it becomes a very humourous and entertaining part of the whole show. It‘s just an interesting format that I thought of 15 years now and we‘ve raised well over $4 million for various western Canadian charities by doing this,” he said, adding all the money stays in the community. This will be the third time in Lethbridge for Youth One.
“What we need to do is just get people. We’re half way there to selling it out and we’d really like to sell it out though it always is well attended,” he said.
He found it easy to get motivated during the pandemic.
“ It was pretty easy. I realized what a time commitment touring all the time is. Music has changed in that for most of us the income stream is mostly live shows,” he observed.
“With streaming, things have changed dramatically. So you have to travel and you have to play and when you take that away, you realize oh my goodness, I have a lot of time and you’re also not feeling, oh I’d better get out and hustle because everybody else I know is and so it kind of takes off that pressure. And then you find you have a lot of time. I worked on my house, I checked off a lot of items on the list at my ranch and I wrote lots of music. I really attribute that to the lack of that grind of getting on a plane and flying somewhere. I love live performance, but when you take that away, you have a lot of time,” he said.
The fruits of that time off the road was two of his own albums and another by his daughter’s Cranbrook based roots act Wild Honey, which has just been released.
“ I’m obviously biased, but I think it’s a great record,” he said adding they are playing some of the B.C Cariboo Express shows.
“It was a productive time musically for me during Covid because we weren’t playing. We weren’t touring. I mean there we some things that did present themselves when the situation relaxed somewhat. But there was a lot of time to write music and produce music and so i just really enjoyed making Cosmic Dreamer but then I also made Ranch Riders with my friend Geoffrey Kelly from Spirit of the West. And both of these were just nominated for Canadian Folk Music Awards. So that was really quite gratifying,” he said.
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