Bringing country music to Burnaby

Bernie Boulanger and David Bridges put city roots into country music
By Dan Hilborn, Burnaby Now assistant editor
Published Sept. 3, 2003


Sitting in a shaded north Burnaby backyard with his guitar strapped over his shoulder and his fingers plucking away at bluegrass chords, it's easy to get the impression that Bernie Boulanger was born and raised on a ranch.

"I've always really loved the acoustic folksy stuff," the 35- year-old singer-songwriter says with just a hint of twang in his voice. "And I've really had a hankering for the country music."

So what sends a man who was born and raised in the city into the throes of country music?

"This stuff runs a little deeper," says Boulanger, who has been playing in bands of one kind or another since his early teens.

"People get attached to it more personally. It's more of the 'sit down and listen to' kind of music."

Boulanger, who has experienced moderate success in the local music scene with his Latin pop quartet The Colorifics, recently joined forces with his childhood friend David Bridges to form the country-rock band Blackfeather.

Even before the pair played their first club, Blackfeather released its debut CD, a 12-track venture titled So Far From the Beauty, on Boulanger's own record label, Homegrown Records of Napier Street.

While Boulanger admits that country music does not have the same kind of "immediate wow" found in pop music, he brings the same kind of urban edge to Blackfeather that he has with his earlier bands.

"I've been writing songs like this ever since I was a kid," says the one-time member of a country garage band that went by the moniker of DGS - short for Dust, Guns and Spurs.

"For one thing, we're not terribly country," says Bridges, the bass player. "We're more on the folk edge.

"If you listen to country stations these days, mostly what you'll hear are pop songs with a banjo or steel guitar."

But there is only a hint of pop music in Blackfeather.

In fact, the real strength of this band is in its heartfelt lyrics and tuneful arrangements.

From the angst-ridden First Train - a song about getting out of the city - to the wistful optimism of Little Seeds - "I wrote that after I'd been living in the Okanagan for a while in a cabin with no electricity. Things can get a little weird," admits Boulanger, whose band clearly plays to a variety of tastes.

Another song, Flying U, was written in homage to a buddy who was once the part owner of the B.C. Interior dude ranch of the same name.

"I went up there for two days in the winter and, on the drive home, I couldn't get the chorus out of my head," says Boulanger.

"I like storytelling," says Boulanger, the son of long-time Burnaby NOW Arts Scene columnist Annie Boulanger. "It's nice if something you write has a pertinent story. Especially if it has some kind of lesson."

And Bridges is happy to leave the songwriting to his partner.

"I think Bernie writes songs that are more in the like Hank Williams, Gordon Lightfoot, Stan Rogers or the Carter family," he says. "They're just really good, simple tunes, with simple arrangements."

Boulanger and Bridge both say their experience growing up in Burnaby in the late 1970s and early '80s provided the perfect upbringing for a pair of country music fans.

"We had a bit of a Huck Finn-like existence," Bridges says. "Back in those days, the city was semi-rural. I remember the horse farms all over the place."

Like any good songwriter, Boulanger is a little more irreverent.

He jokes that he and his friends were primarily responsible for denuding the local creeks of their once-substantial population of crayfish.

Today, they still spend much of their time outdoors, and one of their favourite practice spots is at the Barnet Marine Park.

For the CD, Blackfeather was joined by longtime friend and drummer John Rule, who plays with Boulanger's other band, The Colorifics, plus two violinists Morritz Behn and Llynn Kellman.

The band is currently playing about once a week at a variety of live music venues in Vancouver, notably the Sugar Refinery and the Silvertone Tavern, and they are aiming to have a formal CD release party sometime in the fall.

The band is also looking for a new manager.

For people who are curious about how the band sounds, an informal CD release party will be held on Saturday, Sept. 13, 9:30 p.m., at the Sugar Refinery, 1115 Granville St., in downtown Vancouver. Tickets will be available at the door.