Something To Believe In

Gordon Pendleton was the professional name used for much of the recording career of Gordon Wallace Budd, a Saskatchewan singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer and studio operator whose musical life stretched from Saskatoon’s mid-1960s rock scene through decades of recording and performing in Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Born in Saskatoon on August 15, 1951, he took the surname Pendleton after his mother remarried and later returned to the Budd surname. His Saskatchewan recordings established Gordon Pendleton as the name associated with much of his songwriting and recording work.

Pendleton began playing in bands while still in his teens. His early Saskatoon associations included Rik and the Ravens, The Warloks and Renaissance, while recollections from musicians who knew him also place him in Organized Confusion. By the end of the 1960s he was fronting Jr. & Dudley Dean, before moving toward the singer-songwriter material that became central to his work during the following decade.

That change was evident by 1970. After leaving Jr. & Dudley Dean, Pendleton began appearing on his own at Saskatoon venues including The Crypt, where he performed in October 1970. His sets combined original songs with material by contemporary writers including Gordon Lightfoot, James Taylor and Cat Stevens. He also performed at the Cellar Club at the University of Saskatchewan. His work during this period grew naturally from his experience in Saskatoon rock bands into the more personal songwriting that would define his early solo recordings.

The Crypt appearances led to a management relationship with Allen Shectman, who was also associated with Humphrey and the Dumptrucks. In January 1971 Pendleton travelled to Vancouver, where he recorded the originals ‘After You’d Gone’ and ‘Used Up All My Rainy Days’ at Tom Northcott’s Studio 3. Further sessions at Century 21 Studio in Winnipeg produced ‘So Glad You Came Around’ and ‘Find a Way’. One song from each group of sessions was paired for ‘So Glad You Came Around’ b/w ‘Used Up All My Rainy Days’, released by Boot Records as BT 059 in 1972.

The Boot relationship was intended to continue. Contemporary music-industry reports announced an agreement covering two Pendleton singles and an album, with additional recording planned. His currently documented Boot discography centres on the 1972 single, while the reported second single and album remain part of the continuing research into his early recording history.

By this period Pendleton had also established Beaver Mountain Music, his publishing operation in Saskatoon. Music-industry directories document Beaver Mountain Music during the 1970s and identify Pendleton directly with the company. The name remained part of his musical activities for many years and eventually developed into Beaver Mountain Music Studios.

Pendleton’s 1977 album Something to Believe In was recorded and mixed at Eagle Creek Studios in Rosetown, Saskatchewan. Produced by Pendleton and Tom Wilson, it brought together musicians including Al Vance, Gerry Bowers, Greg DeLaRonde, Scot Thayer, Ross Campbell, Mike Devlin, Rod Salloum, Bill Higbee, Dave Tupper, Keith Bartlett and Sheldon Corbett. Sharon Bowyer and Lorraine Hirst were among the vocal contributors, with Bowyer taking the featured vocal solo on the title song. Pendleton handled vocals, acoustic guitar and bongos and arranged the album himself.

The enclosed lyric sheets preserve unusually precise dates for much of the material. ‘Come on Babe’ dates from October 1972, while ‘Senator Blues’, ‘Accident’, ‘Crack Another Deck’, ‘The Only Loving (I’ve Ever Had)’, ‘Something to Believe In’, ‘Insecure Musician’, ‘Why Don’t You Look at Your Own Life’ and ‘Farm Song’ were written between 1975 and 1976. Lennon and McCartney’s ‘I’m a Loser’ and Hank Williams’ ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ completed the album.

Something to Believe In drew heavily on Pendleton’s own experiences. Relationships, insecurity, drinking, work, family, music and faith move through the songs with an informal directness that suits the small-studio Saskatchewan setting in which the record was made. The spiritual themes heard in the title song and ‘Farm Song’ would become increasingly prominent in his later writing, while songs such as ‘Senator Blues’, ‘Insecure Musician’ and ‘Why Don’t You Look at Your Own Life’ remained grounded in everyday life and the experiences of a working musician. Among friends, Pendleton affectionately referred to the record as “The Brown Album,” after its distinctive brown cover.

His writing moved further toward spiritual material during the following years. In 1982 he released Beggars Can Be Choosers, whose songs included ‘Oh My Jesus’, ‘Brother’, ‘Eternity Song’, ‘Bossa Gospel’, ‘Trinity’ and ‘I Can’t Stand Up Alone’. The same year Pendleton and fellow Saskatchewan musician Gordie Brandt each contributed two songs to the commemorative album Century Saskatoon 1882–1982.

Pendleton was still actively writing and recording as the decade closed. In 1989 he entered C95-FM’s annual Cityworks competition in Saskatoon and was selected as one of the regular winners with ‘Waitin’ on the Lord’. The recording appeared on Cityworks ’89 / Z99 Streetrock ’89, the joint Saskatoon-Regina compilation pairing selections from C95 in Saskatoon with material chosen by Z99 in Regina.

For ‘Waitin’ on the Lord’, Pendleton sang lead and supplied background vocals, Dwayne Harder played keyboards, Jeff Wilkie played drums, Greg Derkson played guitar, and Faith Gaertner and Tom Zimmerman joined Pendleton on background vocals. Pendleton wrote and produced the track, with publishing credited once again to Beaver Mountain Music. Seventeen years after his Boot Records single, the song found him continuing the spiritual direction heard on Beggars Can Be Choosers while remaining active within Saskatoon’s contemporary recording community.

Beaver Mountain Music also developed into a recording operation. By the mid-1990s Beaver Mountain Music Studios was active, with Pendleton working as an engineer and producer. One particularly personal project involved The Acoustic Horror Club, featuring his sons Judah and Dallas Pendleton. Their appearance on the 1996 compilation Home Grown Volume 2: Saskatoon’s Hottest New Talent was engineered by Gordon at Beaver Mountain Music Studios, extending the family’s recording history into another generation.

Pendleton later settled in British Columbia and again became known as Gordie Budd. After spending time on Salt Spring Island, he established Gordie’s Music in Victoria around 1999, combining record and instrument sales with repairs and the knowledge accumulated through decades of writing, recording and playing. Music remained central to his life, and he continued producing, recording and performing in the Victoria area.

His later work included the folk and roots group The Chattering Class. Their 2003 self-titled album appeared on Beaver Mountain Music, with Gordie Pendleton credited among the composers and as producer. The group also included Graeme Card, reconnecting Pendleton with the broader Saskatchewan musical circle associated with Humphrey and the Dumptrucks and Saskatoon’s earlier folk and coffee-house community. Pendleton later performed with Victoria-area musicians including BackBeat and continued assisting other songwriters with the development and recording of their material.

Family accounts describe a catalogue considerably larger than the recordings currently documented, including numerous singles and at least a dozen full-length albums. His early Boot sessions, contributions to Century Saskatoon 1882–1982, later Beaver Mountain recordings and other independent projects provide several avenues for further research into a career that continued to unfold well beyond his better-known Saskatchewan releases.

Gordon Wallace Budd died in Victoria on December 27, 2023, aged 72. His musical life had begun in Saskatoon nearly six decades earlier and carried through rock bands, coffee houses, songwriting, independent records, publishing, studio work, production, music retail and performance.

-Robert Williston