Steve Bell: Anything but a self-made man

When you've had a 25-year career in any field, it's an achievement. When it's something fickle, such as the music business, it's somewhat miraculous.

But talking miracles with Steve Bell isn't far-fetched. Taking a few days break after performing at a house concert in Ontario, Bell is contemplative about the release of Pilgrimage – a four-CD set that is a celebration of a long and happily accidental career.

The Alberta-born singer/songwriter, who has called Winnipeg home for much of his life, tours St. Albert, Edmonton and Sherwood Park – all across Western Canada, actually – on a regular basis, whether with a small band or solo – just Steve and his guitar on a stool. He'll be in the Edmonton area Dec. 7 as part of the solo Pilgrimage Tour.

As the Pilgrimage CD set and accompanying book outlines – it's a real keepsake for fans – Bell went from a teenager in the family band in the 1970s, to guitar and vocal duties with the locally-successful pop/folk trio Elias, Schritt and Bell in the early 1980s. It wasn't until 1989, with the release of his first solo effort Comfort My People distributed on just 300 cassette tapes, that Steve Bell found his voice as a Christian singer/songwriter and storyteller, and it started a musical journey Bell said he never could've imagined. His solo career has now spanned more than two decades and thus far produced 17 albums, three DVDs and more than 1,500 concerts across four continents.

“I was offered a lifetime achievement award recently, so I took the moment to look back,” said Bell, an often funny, self-deprecating man, who uses his time on stage to tell stories about love, marriage and forgetting song lyrics all while sharing his music and faith with the audience.

In fact, Bell is among the best-known Christian musicians in Canada, with an independent recording label, Signpost Music, and numerous awards to his credit: Prairie Music Awards, Western Canadian Music Awards and even two Junos for Best Gospel Album. In recent years, Bell has taken his music to new audiences with two symphony series – performing more than 20 concerts with symphonies across Canada.

“I'm 54 years old in a music world where the narrative is youth-driven. It's nice to counteract that with a bit of wisdom,” Bell said.

Content doing everything from occasional house concerts – “people can interrupt and ask questions, and we can go down this trail or that,” he said –to concert-hall symphony affairs, touring with a band or going solo at churches and community halls, Bell said it's all about sharing his art. “Different mediums can say things on varying levels. I'll always do all of it – they're different palates I can paint on.”

Bell said living the life of a musician has presented challenges. Those include raising three children with wife Nanci, a teacher, in the same 1950s, 1,100 square-foot bungalow they've had for years, plus dealing with the collapse of the CD market some eight years ago, which forced the recording artist to reassess how to keep his business alive.

“We could've never anticipated that. But God is good, and we live, learn and make new opportunities from our mistakes,” Bell said.

Besides Pilgrimage, described by musician Phil Keaggy as “timeless,” Bell is the subject of a feature-length documentary Burning Ember, which chronicles the musician's life on the road and his 25-year career.

“It's all gratifying – the awards, the documentary, the dear friends who sing my songs on this CD. I do sometimes ask myself, what is success?” said Bell. “Somehow I've survived doing this for 25 years, but I realize no one is more or less an important part of this journey. It has always been a team effort and for me – a calling – something I'll keep doing until folks are no longer interested, or until my body wears out.”