Blackie & the Rodeo Kings started out as a project in which three singer/songwriters – Stephen Fearing, Colin Linden, and Tom Wilson – got together to pay homage to a friend and colleague, and as good as they are together, BARK are a band that cherish their sense of democracy so much that no one ever seems like the leader…
Blackie & the Rodeo Kings are a Canadian songwriter's "supergroup," comprised of Colin Linden (who doubles as a guitarist in Bruce Cockburn's band), Stephen Fearing, and Tom Wilson. They may have begun as a garage band to record and perform the songs of obscure Canadian outsider songwriter Willie P. Bennett, but they've evolved into a unit that is akin to the legendary Rockpile in their approach to rootsy, rollicking, hooky pop/rock and country…
"I'll do this one more time and if I can't do it, we'll do another song. I'll do any song as good as I can do it the first time." Bob Dylan says these words once his first solo take of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" breaks down after a minute. Dylan's definition of "good" is fluid, of course. Sometimes, a first take satisfied him – "Maggie's Farm" and "Gates of Eden" are two prime examples – but often he'd find he could do a song better or at least do it differently, swapping out words, speeding up the tempo, and changing the feel, occasionally radically transforming his song.
Borrowed Tunes II is a tribute album to Neil Young, released October 16, 2007. The album features a variety of Canadian musicians covering songs written by Neil Young.
Considering the amount of quality music the ad hoc Canadian singer/songwriter "supergroup" has released under the Blackie & the Rodeo Kings moniker – five albums, including a double from 1996-2007 – this 14-song, 55-minute set should have used the extra 20 minutes of its CD playing time to better advantage. The trio – Colin Linden, Tom Wilson, and Stephen Fearing, all solo artists with well-regarded catalogs of their own – began life by covering the songs of journeyman Canadian songwriter Willie P. Bennett before expanding into original material…