When a lifelong Alberta boy sweats it out in the country club circuit before hitting the big time in Nashville, he has one thing going for him. He knows all about Prince George.
Gord Bamford has spent countless hours on stage in P.G., primarily at the now defunct Cadillac Ranch. He broke a lot of performance ground plowing the rounds in Western Canada, and all that promise he showed turned out to be accurate. Bamford is now one of Canada's hot country commodities, and he is bringing it all around for his first headlining gig at CN Centre.
Just to show us how far he's come, he's bringing along bona fide American country star Joe Nichols (three Grammy Award nominations, and familiar hits like Brokenheartsville, Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off and Yeah Yeah), and up-and-comer band Washboard Union is also in the showring that night.
"Things just kept going the right direction. The last five years have been pretty crazy in my life," Bamford told The Citizen.
You can label Banford's kind of crazy. It has names like When Your Lips Are So Close, Where A Farm Used To Be, Unreal, Is It Friday Yet?, Disappearing Tail Lights, etc.
These are some of the particularly popular songs that sprang from his past two albums, 2012's Is It Friday Yet? and 2013's Country Junkie. His 2010 disc Day Job, with hits like Put Some Alcohol On It and My Daughter's Father, was no slouch either.
While an artist builds career muscles doing club shows, it doesn't give a true indication of what they can do as songwriters, as studio craftspeople, as designers of album packages. Bamford stood out in these departments, which is why Nashville put him on the international radar. When you hear Disappearing Tail Lights, you'd have to strain to discern it isn't Clint Black at the height of his hurtin' power. When you hear Put Some Alcohol On It, you can't help but wonder if Brad Paisley wrote this comical ditty.
But no, as with most of his songs, Bamford and his cowriting collaborators were behind all of that stuff.
So it's no wonder Joe Diffie agreed to sit in and sing along on the title track of his last album. It's no surprise that top-shelf singer-songwriter names Duane Steele and Jake Mathews co-wrote with him the song She Gets Me on that same Country Junkie disc. It's no anomaly that he and the charts became frequent dance partners, or perhaps a better analogy would be tight beer buddies the way local bar-goers were with him back in his formative days.
Those who used to hoist their suds to him at the Cadillac Ranch might feel a bit lucky to see him on high stages like he is today, because his first album was a disappointment at the cash register. That's a tough spot to be in as the name artist when you lay down your best songs, invest in the high cost of musicians and studios and producers, only to see that big swing for the fences end up as a grounder.
That album was God's Green Earth released in 2001. Aggravating it must have been, because it was a high quality package. He had every right to those expectations, and the critics at the time authenticated it. It was a mystery to all why it didn't catch on at the retail level, and that kind of disconnect can end a career before it even gets going.
Bamford was discouraged but mustered the resources to give it another shot. It took him three years but he scraped together Life Is Good, and it contained the song My Heart's A Genius and some others the radio took a shine to. This time, the expectations and the response matched up. Bamford was finally out of the chute.
"I'm going on my seventh record, and when I think back to that first album, it's a tough business, and one thing I'm finding out now, living in Nashville these days, it seems to be more - I wouldn't call it 'easier' - but to break out in Canada as an artist and follow your dreams and have a career in music seems to be more of a reality. So I think I'm very fortunate to be Canadian. The fans in country music in Canada are the greatest."
It's not just the personality of the fan. The Canadian industry has world class recording studios, internationally acclaimed engineers and producers, some of the best writers and players to ever pick up the tools of creation, and a definition of country music that is, by American radio standards, flexible and accommodating. There is also a sophisticated radio system that favours Canadian talent if the production is up to scratch. These conditions are what set up world-attention country acts like kd lang and Michelle Wright and Shania Twain long before America took notice, but when America did, they were set for that bigger, wilder rodeo.
Bamford is among the new crop of Canadian names toiling in those fields today, hauling in heavy crops.
"The key to my success - knock on wood - has been finding the songs that people relate to and, as you said, drink the beer along too," he said.
He is one of those particular kind artists who will mix the track space on an album between songs he wrote himself, songs he co-wrote with other tunesmiths (some of the best in business), and songs entirely written by others.
There are choices to be made, when you are building an album. Do you go with the song you wrote because you have closer emotional connections to evoke from it? Or do you go with a song you co-wrote because you feel obliged to the collaborators who spent precious time creating that piece of art? Or do you go with a strong song someone else wrote because it's so good you know it will give your career a boost beyond your own capabilities, or, as some cover tunes represent, is it a symbolic tip of the hat to an artist you appreciate?
"It's interesting, whether I get it pitched to me or I was involved in the writing. I'm just a fan of a great song," he said. "The process of writing I quite enjoy, but I do a lot of co-writing. I surround myself with great songwriters who really taught me how to be a writer. I always compare it to an electrician or a welder or a doctor. You go through an education process, years of learning, and if you're willing to learn, you figure it out and become good at it. But I just enjoy music in general, and having songs move me in a certain way."
He puts Byron Hill is the top of his personal list of songwriting mentors, but folks like Steve Fox, Gil Grand, the aforementioned Duane Steele, even Hall-of-Famer Ray Griff have been included in his credits over the years.
Now it's his turn. In addition to Washboard Union and Joe Nichols, this concert will also feature a live appearance by fast-rising Canadian teenager Jesse Mast from Salmon Arm. He's hitting with the single Bad Blood, and Bamford is acting as a mentor to the young star-in-waiting just like Johnny Reid is doing for J.J. Shiplett or Hank Snow did for a kind named Elvis Presley.
"The best I can put it is, (Mast) is like John Mayer mixed with Keith Urban," Bamford said.
And speaking of Keith Urban, has Bamford ever had the chance to chat with the country superstar about how the two of them might just be the most famous country musicians in the world from Down Under? Bamford is a Canadian from Lacombe, Alberta, but was born and lived the first few years of his life in Australia.
"You've done your research. I've met him a couple of times, but I haven't had a chance to talk to him about that. Maybe I could pitch him a couple of songs," he said.
The way things are going for Bamford, it might be Urban pitching the songs his way, one day.
Bamford will be heading down to Australia for some touring later this summer.
In the meantime, the NHL season isn't over, and what's a transplanted Canadian to do in Nashville but go to some Predators games? Of course it isn't the snarling sabre-tooth tiger (the bones of this prehistoric cat were found in a downtown Nashville excavation near where the arena now stands) he has on his chest.
"I wear the Oilers jersey," Bamford said. He praised the Calgary Flames organization and acknowledged they have been generous with him over the years, since his hometown is a short drive from the Saddledome, but his heart was always dipped in Oil since childhood.
Since he couldn't play in the NHL, Bamford is happy doing his next best childhood fantasy: walking out on stage with a guitar to rock audiences everywhere he goes.
He, Jesse Mast, Joe Nichols and Washboard Union will be at CN Centre on April 12.
