In Spring 2014, singer/songwriter, Bet Smith wandered into the vintage music shop owned by The Currie Brothers on the advice of an old friend. Soon after, Bet and the Currie brothers began recording what would become their first EP, Loose Ends. Moody alternative-folk songs written by Bet were brought to life by multi-instrumentalists, Rob and Andrew and some of their talented friends. Since releasing the EP in April 2015 the group have been caught up in a whirlwind of concerts and recording projects. Sarah Girdwood connected with the group at a show in late 2015 and joined the band soon after.
The released a deluxe anniversary edition of Loose Ends on Earth Day 2016, and a new alt-country album: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is in July.
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, the new ten-song LP by Bet Smith is an album inspired by the hard-working and under-appreciated folks who make the world go ‘round. Primarily written in farmers’ fields, construction sites and the back roads of rural Canada, this album reflects on Bet’s blue-collar years, labouring on small farms in British Columbia and welding on muddy hillsides in the Ontario bush.
Conversations had, overheard and imagined over long days in field and brush sparked new songs that were realized in full at Bet’s first opportunity to pick up a guitar at the end of a workday.
Whereas Bet’s 2015 folk EP, Loose Ends, was dark and cautionary, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is relies on traditional country themes mixed with tongue-in-cheek humor to achieve a new level of accessibility with songs written about love, broken hearts, working hard, being poor just the same, and lessons learned on a bar stool: ten songs she hopes will speak to the backbone of rural North America, and lovers of Alt-Country and Americana.
The LP’s first single, “Bakesale Angel, BBQ Queen” is a comical song about good-old-fashioned kitchen rivalry: competition that erupts between a jealous girlfriend and her beau’s ex. The tune was imagined up while Bet shovelled manure on a good friend’s farm – the friend being an enviably excellent cook.
The recording features Miranda Mulholland of The Great Lake Swimmers on fiddle and Aaron Goldstein of Daniel Romano and the Trilliums on pedal steel. Bet’s hometown allies, The Currie Brothershold it all together with Andrew Currie on drums and brother Rob on bass and percussive electric guitar. As a final touch, Bet talked the boys into a pots-and-pans percussion track to compliment the theme of the song. The second tune – Get In Line – from which comes the album’s title, “put your money where your mouth is,” was thought up while Bet did menial chores on a cattle farm and allowed her mind to wander to a bar interaction between a farm girl and a fake cowboy.
Bet’s previous release, Loose Ends was well received by radio and online media in Canada, earning rotation on twenty college and community stations as well as CBC Radio. The album was also welcomed into the U.K. by a James Wilson, blogger for My Random Jukebox, who introduced Bet Smith to programmers of the syndicated radio show Music Hour UK. The show subsequently promoted Bet’s music to listeners of 40 stations around the world.
Loose Ends’ release was celebrated by a packed room at The Cameron House in Toronto and took Bet on her ninth and tenth Via Rail concert tours across Canada and road tours in Ontario and British Columbia where she holds on to friends and fans created through past performances at Salmon Arm Roots & Blues Festival,Islands Folk Festival and Lillooet’s outdoor concert series, as well as many shows in the Comox Valley where she once called home. On-route Bet worked with CBC television to create a mini-documentary about her tour with Via Rail for the new show, Exhibitionists.
2015 Bio for Loose Ends release
On May 3rd, Bet Smith celebrated the release of her new EP, Loose Ends with a room jammed full of friends and fans at The Cameron House in Toronto, Ontario. Since the official April release date, the EP has earned international acclaim and rotation on CBC Radio One and Radio 2, and on college and community stations throughout Canada.
Bet's Loose Ends is a collection of songs from the shadowy pages of her notebook. Having rarely made it onto stages or set lists, these five songs have found a home on this stirring, poignant and carefully crafted assemblage, created in collaboration with The Currie Brothers in Gravenhurst, Ontario.
Sonically gripping and beautifully phrased lyrically as well as instrumentally, the songs that make up Loose Ends are rich in environmental imagery, and reflect on both the fragilities and strengths of nature and human beings as animals within it. Hardships and missteps of a rural youth, reflections on a back-to-the-land lifestyle, loneliness, acceptance and feminine realities are strong themes represented within the work - songs composed of fragmented personal memories mixed with observances and invention.
Produced and engineered by Rob Currie, Loose Ends was recorded in a dimly lit, cozy studio tucked away in the Currie brothers' vintage music store. An unexpected chemistry between Bet and new acquaintances Rob and Andrew became apparent from project start, grew stronger over the course of the recording process and is evident throughout the EP. Bet's lyrically rich folk songs are underlined by weighty layers of both dreamlike and driving instrumentation put in place by the Currie Brothers as well as Bet, with contributions byJohnny Fay, (The Tragically Hip) Bronwyn Smith, (Bet's little sister) and visiting friends. Bet's honest, oaky voice is captured and complimented artfully by the tracking arranged by Rob in his debut as a producer.
Loose Ends came to exist after a two-year hiatus from music as Bet's life turned upside-down and right side up again. Previously, Bet had recorded and toured throughout Canada as a duo with partner, Oliver Wives. The duo released a full-length album and an EP, and performed festivals such as the Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival and Islands Folk Festival. Bet's introduction to the folk music scene was at the age of fifteen when she debuted on a small stage at Mariposa Folk Festival.
By day Bet works as a welder, builder and craftsperson between Toronto and Muskoka. Having recently returned to Ontario after living off-grid on Denman Island for three years, Bet is passionate about wilderness preservation, low-impact living, small farms and the local food movement. With education in the art of blacksmithing, Bet's long term dream is to live a sustainable lifestyle as an artist blacksmith and farmer. In the meantime, she says "ideas about touring in support of sustainable agriculture are brewing in my soul."