Dustin Bentall - November/December 2006
Who: Dustin Bentall
What: Dusty trails
Where: Vancouver
To Contact: www.dustinbentall.com.
The 23-year-old son of Barney Bentall, who himself came out with an album this summer after a lengthy absence, cut these 10 alt-country songs at NAL studio in North Vancouver with producer, engineer and mixer John Macarthur Ellis. The younger Bentall sings, plays acoustic guitar and harmonica, and corrals Ellis on electric guitars, pedal steel, piano and banjo, drummer Pat Stewart, and stand-up and electric bass player Rob Bekker to help out. There are also a number of guest vocalists, including his dad. Bentall wrote all the songs, save the cover of Stephen Still’s “Helplessly Hoping” and a co-write with JP Poirier called “The River Song.” Drawn to songs by Neil Young, the Band, Bob Dylan, John Prine, Tom Petty, Gram Parsons, and Steve Earle, this songwriter has ignored what most guys his age might be doing - rocking out in a punk band or waxing all sensitive to lure the girls - and instead creates music that is more timeless from the flaked-out county cool of the title track to the party-hardy twang of “The River Song”. He’s more a Ryan Adams or Rhett Miller, just writing fresh songs with no mind to trends or MTV.