Barney Bentall

In Vancouver, Canada, the rock outfit Barney Bentall & the Legendary Hearts came together during 1980. Over the ensuing years the roster experienced frequent turnover, encompassing frontman Bentall on vocals and guitar, drummer Jack Guppy, guitarists Doug McFetridge and Colin Nairne, bassists Barry Muir and Kevin Swain, and keyboardists Will Froese and Cam Bowman. Before the group existed, Bentall had already issued several solo recordings in 1979 under the alias Brandon Wolf.

From 1980 through 1997 the band delivered nearly twenty singles on major imprints such as CBS and Sony, among them the tracks "Life Could be Worse," "The House of Love," "Nothing Hurts Like the Words," and "Family Man," while also issuing more than half a dozen albums, notably Lonely Avenue in 1990, Ain't Life Strange in 1992, and a 1997 greatest-hits collection drawn from Barney Bentall & the Legendary Hearts material recorded between 1986 and 1996. After the ensemble disbanded in 1997, Bentall spent the next decade working as a cattle rancher until restlessness prompted his return to music as a solo performer with the 2006 album Gift Horse. Throughout the following ten years he maintained a steady schedule of recordings and live appearances, at times joined by configurations of the Legendary Hearts.