A Good Saturday for music lovers in Sharbot Lake

Craig Bakay | Sep 27, 2017

It was one of the hottest days of the year down at Oso Beach on Saturday. But there was a Canada Day size crowd. About the only difference from our annual beach bash was that there wasn’t nearly as much red and white. Oh, and the age of the crowd was probably a little older too, because you see, they were there to see and hear a bunch of guys they’ve been listening to for 40 years or so — fellow Canadians and iconic band The Good Brothers.
Bruce, Brian and Larry are a little greyer than most probably remember them but they can still bring it. Yes, they played Fox on the Run and Alberta Bound and nobody walked away disappointed.
The Brothers made their first trip to Sharbot Lake courtesy of Seeds & Company’s Sam Arraj, a former president of the Canadian Country Music Association, who wanted to do a ‘thank you’ for the community of Sharbot Lake. So, he brought in some legends.
Actually, the Brothers don’t think of themselves as ‘legends,’ they’re just doing what they love to do.

“Maybe in our own minds (we’re legends),” joked Bruce Good, who tends to handle the group’s interviews. “I guess if you hang around long enough people say those things about you.
“We did join the (musicians) union in 1970.”
That was in Richmond Hill where they played coffee houses, high school dances, churches, wherever they could.
But it wasn’t long before they were on The Festival Express (“our very first tour”) with The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Ian and Sylvia.
Tours with the Dead, New Riders of the Purple Sage and other SoCal bands followed as did eight Junos and numerous other albums and accolades.
And they’ve always had a huge following in Europe.

“Actually we just got back from a tour of Europe,” Bruce said. “And we’re going back next year for a 40th tour.”
They do it because they enjoy it, they always have and they still do.
“It never gets boring,” he said. “We change it up.”
But how about Fox on the Run?
“Well, I still love the song,” he said. “But another part of playing that one is the response it always gets from the audience.
“And that’s why you do it, to please the audience and pleasing and audience never gets old or boring.”
And Bruce doesn’t see it coming to an end anytime soon.

If he’s not playing with his brothers, he has a family band with wife Margaret and sons Dallas and Travis (aka The Sadies).
The Good Brothers even have a new album out, Wide Awake Dreamin’, in which Bruce and Brian wrote seven of the 10 songs. It’s been getting airplay and critical praise but even if it didn’t, the album has one fan that means the world to Bruce.
“I got a call from Gordon Lightfoot to tell me he liked the writing on the album,” he said. “That means more than anything to me.”
Sharbot Lake’s own Adam Lake and Ryan Anderson of Whiskey Saint opened the show followed by Amanda Sadler.