Georgia Straight, Vancouver, September 1999

"Ensconced in a hotel on Hollywood Blvd., Bird 'Stone Ranger' Bellony is only a short walk from Nudie's Los Angeles store. But, however good he might look in one of the tailor's colourful creations, he's resisting the temptation to splurge on some new threads - at least for the moment.

...But if Bellony is as lucky as he is talented, it's only a matter of time before he won't have to worry about the price of fashion. With its second CD, 'Rock Steady Rodeo,' his band, the Reggae Cowboys, has crafted both one of the finest recordings ever to come out of Toronto's vibrant Caribbean community and a disc that is already winning it a lot of friends south of the border.

Mind you if someone had told me this a couple of years ago, I would have been dubious at best. The Cowboys' debut was an entertaining little trifle but hardly a work of art; in fact, it seemed more of a joke. A reggae band writing songs about the Old West and setting Bakersfield-style guitar lines against one-drop riddims? ‘Good for a laugh I thought ...well I was wrong’. The songs prove that (they’re) no mere novelty act. Beneath such funny and dance-floor friendly chants as ‘Wild West Indian’ and ‘Reggae Rodeo’ lurk keen insights into just how the West was won - and how, in many ways, the legacy infects contemporary life."