Presenting The Good Brothers

A recent interview with Bruce Good on luck, gratitude and the healing power of music

The Good Brothers, from left to right: Larry, Bruce and Brian.

Playing for “Chili and Lemonade” and Big Breaks

A little luck combined with a lot of hard work are common ingredients in the career trajectory of many artists. For some, this fortune comes early and at an unexpected moment. Just ask The Good Brothers. The sibling trio of Bruce (autoharp/vocals), Brian (guitar/vocals) and Larry (banjo/vocals) are a Canadian country-rock institution. Lady Luck landed in their laps in an unexpected way more than 55 years ago during what Bruce Good remembers as the group’s first official gig.

In the Summer of Love, “Toronto the Good” was a music Mecca when the nine-to-fivers went to bed. Sounds poured into the streets across the city: from rockabilly with Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins belting out tunes nightly on Yonge Street at Le Coq d’Or; blues artists like Howlin’ Wolf singing from deep in their souls at The Colonial Tavern. Further south, the Yorkville neighbourhood (today a posh district) was a hippie’s dream with a thriving coffee house scene. Troubadours like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, and Gordon Lightfoot woodshedded songs and honed their craft at venues now long-gone like The Riverboat, The Purple Onion, and The Penny Farthing before moving on to headline Massey Hall.

After jamming for a couple of years in their Richmond Hill, Ont. basement, Bruce and twin brother Brian befriended James Ackroyd, a guitarist from Winnipeg who had arrived in Toronto to forge a career in music. These aspiring musicians formed a trio called James and The Good Brothers and, in 1970, landed their first gig at The Penny Farthing.

“We were playing for chili and lemonade!” recalls Bruce Good, referencing the fact that the coffeehouses were not licensed to serve alcohol. “We took a break after jamming one night and the waitress told us there were three gentlemen that wanted to meet us.”

Bruce gazed from the stage to the table the server pointed out. Staring back were a trio of nattily dressed men. “I thought they were probably narcs!,” he recalls. The well-to-dos were actually local concert promoter Ken Walker and Thor and George Eaton, scions of Eaton’s — Canada’s iconic department store chain that ceased operations in 1999. Ken looked at these musicians and simply said, “You guys want to do some shows for us?”

Bruce and his bandmates were looking for gigs and figured they had nothing to lose accepting this fortuitous offer. They did not imagine how big that offer was.

“I’m thinking they are going to offer us a corporate gig somewhere,” Good recalls. “Instead, they said, ‘We’re bringing Grand Funk Railroad into Maple Leaf Gardens and wondered if you’d like to open up?’”

Of course the band said yes. Following a month of woodshedding in a friend’s basement, James and The Good Brothers opened with a well-received acoustic set for the classic rockers — known for hits like “We’re and American Band,” and their cover of “Some Kind of Wonderful” — at the storied arena where the Toronto Maple Leafs last hoisted the Stanley Cup. A management deal with Walker and the Eaton brothers followed and that was the start of a string of opening gigs at the Gardens that included: Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention and Delaney and Bonnie (and friends).

All Aboard the Train of Excess

Following these plum gigs, James and The Good Brothers’ received offers to play outside of Canada. The acoustic trio played seminal San Francisco venues like the Winterland Ballroom and the Filmore West. During these West Coast visits , the band befriended The Grateful Dead who helped secure them a record deal with Columbia [They released the self-titled James and The Good Brothers in 1971.].

On June 27, 1970, the band joined fellow musical merrymakers The Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band, Eric Andersen, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, Ian & Sylvia and The Great Speckled Bird, Mashmakan, Robert Charlebois, Mountain, and Buddy Guy for a cross-Canada train tour dubbed the Festival Express. The brainchild of impresario Ken Walker, this music fest started in Toronto and made pit stops in Winnipeg, Saskatoon (just to replenish their liquor supplies) and Calgary. Watch this 2004 documentary to learn more about this Canadian music festival.

Birth of The Good Brothers; A Song Born from Grief

In 1973, the twins part ways with Ackroyd who decided to remain in the United States to further his career. Back home, Bruce and Brian recruit younger brother Larry and The Good Brothers are officially born as an all-in-the-family band. Their self-titled debut arrived in 1976 and the album won a Juno Award for Best Country Group. Since then, the trio have rarely stopped making music and performing across North America. The Good Brothers are members of both the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and the North American Country Music Association International Hall of Fame; and, in 2015 they received a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Toronto Musicians Association.More than 50 years on, these country roots-rockers still perform and still make music; sibling harmony never sounded so good.

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February 17, 2022, is a day forever etched in Bruce’s brain; it’s when his son Dallas Good died of natural causes while in a doctor’s care for coronary illness; he was only 48-years-old. Music was in Dallas’ DNA. With brother Travis, the pair formed the alt-country juggernaut

The Sadies

in Toronto in the late 1990s with bassist Sean Dean and drummer Mike Belitsky. Without Dallas, the band keeps on keeping on. Every show is a love letter to their departed brother in song now three years gone. The band’s most recent release (its first without Dallas) — the self-titled Rick White and The Sadies — is in my humble opinion one of the best records of 2024. Many of the songs are a direct conversation with Dallas and the music helps these artists grieve.

The loss of his son is never far from Bruce’s mind, but the musician never imagined writing an ode to Dallas. One day, it just happened and, like the Sadies, the exercise was therapeutic.

Writing this song was therapy … it really helped me get through my grief.

“My basement looks like a nightclub,” says Good. “In between the Sadies and The Good Brothers, I’ve saved all our gig posters and they now plaster all four walls. In one little corner, I created an altar to Dallas. There’s a great black & white photograph that Greg Keeler of Blue Rodeo blew up for me and I also have Dallas’ electric guitar with his name etched on the neck. That corner is where I do my writing and The Good Brothers sometimes rehearse.”

When I was writing that song — I didn’t even intend to do it — but one day I glanced over at that altar and started thinking about my loss. I just started strumming … you never know what’s going to come first, melody or lyrics, but this time it was the melody. I started getting some nice chords together and once in a while I’d look over to that picture of Dallas and say to myself, ‘I don't think he’d be crazy about that line!,’ so it took me almost a year to write that song. As they say, songs aren’t written, they’re rewritten.

Eventually, Bruce played the song for his wife Margaret, his “biggest critic.” When Dallas’ mother gave it a nod, the musician thought he might have something, so he played it for his brothers. Still, he had no intention of recording it; the song was too personal, but Larry convinced him that they should lay it done and see how it sounded. As Bruce weighed this decision, serendipity stepped in. An upstart record company (Countrycore Records) contacted The Good Brothers and asked if they had any new material, offering the band studio time. The brothers agreed to record this tribute to Dallas and asked The Sadies to join them. This past February, three years since the passing of Dallas, The Good Brothers released: “Now That You’re Gone.”

What’s next?

The Good Brothers have already recorded more new material. They plan to take the summer off playing live to lay down a few more tracks and let a few minor injuries heal. Come fall, god-willing, the plan is to hit the road again.

“I'll be 80-years-old later this year,” says Bruce. “To be my age, and have the opportunity to continue recording and touring, I’m just so grateful. Once it’s in you, it’s hard to let it go, but I’ve told Margaret that if I ever get to the point where it ain't working anymore, to not hold back and let me know.”