Beginning their journey in the ’60s, the Bellamy Brothers have

come a long way in country music. And for legions of fans in Doha,

the live show was a welcome treat. By Umer Nangiana

For country and pop music fans, it was nothing less than a dream come true. Yes, it was the Bellamy Brothers live in Doha and they were at their usual best. Despite all the years gone by, it was the same exuberance in their music and they sounded pretty much the same from their heydays in the ’70s.

The atmosphere in the Grand Ballroom at St Regis hotel was electric. You could even spot some ‘cowboys’ in the crowd.

In their signature attire and traditional rustic style, David Milton Bellamy and Homer Howard Bellamy, the two brothers and the legendary rock, pop and country music artists from Nashville in the US, rocked the audience with some of their all-time hits.

They picked up Let your love flow, their bumper hit of the 70s, and the audience went up in cheers. And from then on, it was a trip down memory lane. From Reggae cowboy, Do you love as good as you look, Sugar daddy, We dared the lightening, I need more of you to I could be persuaded, For all the wrong reasons, Rip off the knob, Dancing cowboy and Crazy from heart, it was a musical treat readily lapped up by the audience.

Many would have come across the brothers face-to-face for the first in their lives. Listening to their songs back in ’70s and ’80s and experiencing it live here, they must have wondered what has changed in their singing.

Apart from their hair going grey, the Bellamy Brothers said they have only got better. What has really changed from then to now?

“We don’t party as much,” said David and both laughed. “In terms of our band and our show I think it is better than it has ever been. We still do 150 shows every year. We went to India in May this year and it was great,” he added. We caught up with the brothers backstage during the interval for a chat. Next year, they are going to celebrate 40 years of their union as the Bellamy Brothers.

The duo had a huge musical success in the ’70s and ’80s, starting with the release of their crossover hit Let your love flow in 1976, a number one single on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting in the late 60s, the brothers found success in country music as well, charting 20 No. 1 singles and more than 50 hits overall on the country charts.

And they are still producing original songs. “We are working now on our 40th anniversary and there will be 17-18 brand new songs, no one has ever heard. And with that the 17-18 old numbers, so it is a really big project,” the brothers revealed. They were brought here by Al-Tulu and is slated to perform in Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC) today.

Starting together as a duo of brothers, the artists have stayed true to their union 40 years down the road. How did they manage to stay together for this long while most people around them have been coming and going?

“We grew up on ranches. There are a lot of chores or work to do at the ranches. Our family taught us at a very young age how to work together. And I think that had a lot to do with it, you got to get along,” Howard said. “And we have a pretty good chemistry anyway. Even though we are entirely different, we have things in common as well,” he added.

David recalled that their first ever band was The Excellence and the second was called the Heterogeneous Grouping. “Then we had the band that toured all over the south of US that we called Jericho. It was a pretty big club band that played in the clubs all over the south,” said the younger brother. David is four years younger to Howard.

“Usually it was just me and Howard left because somebody’s girlfriend would carry them off or somebody would have to go back to school. So then it was just us left so we called ourselves the Bellamy Brothers,” said David.

The legendary musicians have performed the world over during their long musical career together and teamed up with many international artists, the recent live performance was held in Switzerland. From working on ideas, to writing songs and composing music, it is teamwork for the brothers. “We all come up with ideas. Sometimes we write something together and there is really not a set way of doing it,” David explained as to how they compose their songs.

“We have done a lot of different projects too, a lot of duets with people all over the world with many kinds of music,” he added.

Taking inspiration from their father and their sister who were also musicians, the two brothers started singing and playing music at a very young age. Howard said it was the church where they first began singing at. Initially it was only for fun.

They tried and enjoyed all different kinds of music and not just country, he added. The duo does not believe in categorising themselves.

“We have done a lot of rock tunes. We don’t just do country. We like all kinds of music. We have tried to approach it by just doing songs that we really like rather than what category it falls in,” said the older brother.

When did you discover that you had a singing voice? “We still don’t know,” both laughed in unison. “We started early on. We have been singing since a very early age. It wasn’t something that we set out to learn. It kind of just happened,” recalled Howard. Their first ever break in music career came with a song written by David called Spiders and snakes.

“This other artist picked it up, he saw the name and the title and he was a kind of a comedian singer and a great guitar player so he transformed it into his style and it was a huge hit,” said Howard.

“That gave us a little boost and we said oh! We have a shot and then we pursued our career,” he went on to add.

About Let your love flow he said it opened up a worldwide market for them. It was number one in literally 15 countries. “It was a pop hit, it wasn’t country. And suddenly we were from farm boys to a sensation,” recalled Howard.

The younger brother said that in the beginning it was a very strange transformation into “what we really had become or we were to become. And then it just evolved.”

Walking on their foot prints, David’s sons Jesse and Noah are also musicians and singers. They are also performing together and have recorded many albums besides touring Europe and the US.

David said their vocal texture sometimes sound a little bit like their father and uncle’s duo but “their music is a little bit more what they call ‘old country’. But they have kind of their own sounds.”

It was their first ever trip to Qatar, however, the brothers have been to Middle East before, performing in Saudi Arabia in the early ’80s.

The brothers said they have found the pop and country music fans literally everywhere. More than that, they have found fans of the Bellamy Brothers all over the world. “I don’t know if it was country fans in India or other places; we had a lot of fans, the Bellamy Brothers,” said Howard.  

They still do a lot of shows in Europe and were in fact coming straight from Zurich after touring Norway, Germany and Switzerland. The brothers believe they have found a very nice audience world over.