Barney Bentall and the Legendary Hearts

Prior to forming the Legendary Hearts in 1987, Barney Bentall was part of the emerging Vancouver new wave music scene of the early 1980’s. His band, Brandon Wolf, released two EPs (one on A&M records) as well as a full length album before reforming themselves into a 1960’s cover band called the Revengers. Playing biker dances, hayrides, funerals and strip clubs in order to afford discounted studio time at the now legendary Little Mountain Sound, the band worked with soon to be famous producer Bob Rock on the demos that would spur CBS records to sign Bentall to a recording contract as well as convincing Bernie Finkelstein (Bruce Cockburn, Murray McLauchlan) to manage him. The bands eponymous first record ‘Barney Bentall and the Legendary Hearts’ released in 1988 garnered the band a Juno Award and went on to sell over 100,000 copies (platinum). Singles such as ‘Come Back to Me’, ‘The House of Love is Haunted’ and perhaps their biggest hit ‘Something to Live For’ were radio staples during the remainder of the 1980’s.


Following the success of their first recording, CBS, now Sony Records, released ‘Lonely Avenue’ (1990) and ‘Ain’t Life Strange’ (1992). Singles from both these albums produced several top ten radio singles such as ‘Crime Against Love’, ‘Life Could be Worse’ and ‘Doin Fine’. Both albums achieved gold sales status of over 50,000 copies each.

The band toured constantly and performed over 150 shows a year between 1988 and 1994. With new members Mike Crozier and Dave Reimer the Legendary Hearts self produced their record ‘Gin Palace’ in 1995. Their ‘quickest to gold’ record to date, the single ‘Do Ya’ stayed at the #2 position at radio for 6 weeks. Other singles followed including “Shattered’ and ‘Oh Shelly’ and the radio play allowed the band to embark on their most comprehensive tour of their career with multiple stops in all provinces.