Canadian country star Gord Bamford has working class roots. You can picture the big, lantern jawed, Lacombe bred singer and 2010 CCMA male artist of the year, going out to the feedlot to feed cattle when it’s 40 below, so he isn’t going to let a little thing like an emergency gall bladder operation slow him down, especially on the eve of releasing his major label debut CD “Is It Friday Yet.”
“Yeah, that was bad timing. I had to get up and do stuff,” he said, taking care of publicity for the new CD.
Top 40 radio had already embraced the title track and first single, even before the CD’s March 6 release. You can see why. His voice is almost a dead ringer for Allan Jackson, he sings about working, women, family and country music with a great deal of authority.
From listening to the CD, you wouldn’t notice it was his first on the major record label Sony if you hadn’t asked him. It is chock full of the same Gord Bamford working class anthems, tender ballads and barn burning, foot stomping drinking songs that country radio has been addicted to playing over the past three albums.
But moving to the major label was the right move.
“ It’s been great. On the first records we did a lot of planning and playing,” he said.
There is only so much you can do on your own. They have a team of 18 or 19 to do what two or three of us used to have to do,” he said.
They didn’t try to change his sound.
“ I had a lot of success before. And they had a great attitude of if-it-ain’t-broke,-don’t-fix-it,” he said.
“Farm Girl Strong” follows in the footsteps of his career song “Drinking Buddy.”
“Farm girls are tough. And I got to write it with one of my influences, Terry McBride of McBride and the Ride. It was a very cool experience. It definitely will appeal to people who liked “Drinking Buddy,” he said.
“It is Friday Yet,” is another one of his favourites.
“I was just amazed nobody had written that yet. It’s a blue collar grass roots song. It’s got an Allan Jackson type of feel to it,” he continued.
“Must Be a Woman,” is in a similar vein. It explores a man changing his nature because of his new girlfriend.
“ I think it’s really well written,” he continued.
Bamford will be in Lethbridge, with Miranda Lambert and the Pistol Annies, Sept. 6 at the Enmax Centre on the On Fire Tour.
