It is refreshing to have Greg quoted for a change...

http://www.hour.ca/music/music.aspx?iIDArticle=13857

Blue Rodeo: It's about time they were institutionalized

Tracked down in Red Deer, Alberta, singer-guitarist Greg Keelor sounds relaxed. He says a major reason for Blue Rodeo's success is based on the special relationship he and singer/guitarist Jim Cuddy have: a high school friendship that turned into a productive artistic collaboration.

"We first met in 1972 in Toronto. Eventually we started playing music together and formed our first band in '78. We spent three years in New York City honing our skills and hoping for a record deal. Our return to Toronto in 1984 marks the beginning of Blue Rodeo."

When you listen to a Blue Rodeo song it's obvious which of the two songwriters has written it. Each possesses a distinct sound: Cuddy composes melodic, countrified pop songs while Keelor travels darker and rockier terrain. Yet all their songs are credited as Keelor/Cuddy compositions.

"It's one of the things that has contributed to the longevity of the band," Keelor explains. "It makes things easy because we don't fight over writing credits, royalties and publishing money. It's indicative of our partnership."

Asked whether he ever tires of being dubbed John Lennon to Cuddy's Paul McCartney, the former Montrealer laughs. "As long as I stay Lennon, it's okay

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These days Keelor is open to exploring different musical genres. On the new album, he ventures into the laid-back strumming of bossa nova, as heard on the song Together. "I love bossa nova and easy- listening music. I love Astrud [Gilberto] and [Antonio Carlos] Jobim. Together is my contribution to this great music.

"There was a funny review in a Toronto paper that said if someone had told Greg Keelor 20 years ago there would be a bossa nova track on his record, there would have been blood spilt."

After the current Canadian tour, Blue Rodeo head to Austin, Texas, to play the South by Southwest festival, and then it's off to Afghanistan to visit Canadian troops. "We're going over with a bunch of hockey old-timers. We'll do a show and then play a ball-hockey game. Those guys better watch out. I know they've survived the Taliban but they're going to lose a few teeth when we arrive."

Blue Rodeo
w/ Luke Doucet
At Théâtre St-Denis (1594 St-Denis),
Jan. 31 and Feb. 2

"Cuddy composes melodic, countrified pop songs while Keelor travels darker and rockier terrain."

I wonder if the writer has ever heard Trust Yourself or What You Want or whether he would be familiar with Blue House or Cynthia.  I am enjoying these articles though - thanks for posting them! 

Joanne:

Asked whether he ever tires of being dubbed John Lennon to Cuddy's Paul McCartney, the former Montrealer laughs. "As long as I stay Lennon, it's okay with me."

http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/arts_life/story.html?id=4a27f2b5-1f8f-4bda-b909-44820d97136e

BLUE RODEO

Conexus Arts Centre

- - -

  

Blue Rodeo's Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor were themselves again the other night.

Bryan Schlosser, Leader-Post

For a blissful couple of moments, the near-capacity crowd at the Conexus Arts Centre thought Jim Cuddy was only joking.

When Blue Rodeo's co-singer/songwriter asked his audience when the venue's name was changed from "Centennial Arena," the Regina crowd chuckled appreciatively. Ah, Jim knows the famous Regina-Saskatoon rivalry. What a kidder.

When he persisted in his question, however, the horrible truth dawned. Either Mr. Cuddy thought he was in Saskatoon, or -- far worse -- he simply didn't know the difference.

"Uh, wrong city, Jim," fellow bandleader Greg Keelor noted helpfully.

Awkward. From the distance of the main theatre's balcony, the lithe, wide-eyed and spangle-shirted Cuddy suddenly looked startlingly like Woody from Toy Story. He recovered well, instantly launching into "Try," one of Blue Rodeo's most crowdpleasing ballads. How appropriate that its first line was "Don't tell me I'm wrong ..."

With other bands, the faux pas might have killed the atmosphere. But, hey, this is Blue Rodeo, possibly the finest band to play Regina with any kind of regularity, and the relatively subdued midwinter crowd at was quick to forgive with an enormous ovation after the last note of "Try."

Call it just one of the Small Miracles that typifies the quarter-century career of Blue Rodeo and gives the band's latest album its name.

You always know what you're going to get with a Blue Rodeo show, though not in that generic fast-food chain sense. You know you'll get to sing along to most of your favourite tunes, you know you'll walk away satisfied, but you also know that along the way you will be treated to at least a few small musical miracles.

Like the Keelor plugged-in acoustic guitar solo that wrapped up "Five Days in May" -- beginning with a series of isolated, stabbing notes and building to a full-out, all-band jam that was this concert's first real sign of energy. Or the perfect interplay between Cuddy's still-stellar vocals and Keelor's galloping guitar on "Rain Down on Me."

You can also count on a bit of mischief.

After a psychedelic and somewhat ominous lights-and-music prelude came to a sudden halt, the show opened to a spare stage set with a minimal number of instruments, a turntable and a lone stagehand listening to low-fi old western tunes. When the band's members finally took the stage, they were just as casual as the stagehand, stepping easily into the opening number and continuing through a series of midtempo tunes from the Cuddy/Keelor catalogue.

Nine songs in, however, Keelor and Cuddy's duet version of "Bad Timing" was followed by the drop of the back curtain, revealing the rest of the band fully instrumentalized and kicking into high gear with "Til I Am Myself Again."

Suddenly the blue had given way to the rodeo, and we were away.

Of the material from the new album, the most striking by an alt-country mile was "Black Ribbon," an eerie meditation on an alluringly lost woman. With its flattened-out guitar chords, instantly likable melody and psychedelic interlude, it's the best Blue Rodeo jam since 1989's "Diamond Mine."

At Keelor's urging, a few dozen fans shook off the late-January blahs to take to their feet and dance through the closing number, "Heart Like Mine," and four-song encore.

Indie country-rock artist Luke Doucet and his band, who had opened the show in support of Doucet's new album Blood's Too Rich, lent a hand with the rousing closer, "Lost Together."

All in all, another first-rate evening of musical storytelling by a band whose storytelling has always set it apart from the pack.

To Regina, that is.

© The Leader-Post (Regina) 2008

http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/story.html?id=ffeac43d-8edb-4de9-a9ac-9080f09e3602

What could be called The Blue Rodeo Invigoration Tour hit town Friday night with a show at TCU Place.

The veteran Canadian band might be getting long in the tooth but they're not short on creativity.

The show started with a mixture of pretense and humor. After a too-long intermission and way-way-too-long interlude featuring atmospheric music and blue lights probing the darkness, some guy came out and slapped an LP on a garage-sale hi-fi from the '70s. The trumpet of The Lonely Bull filled the room. Herb Alpert would have been pleased but the press deadline was already approaching and this was turning into The Reviewer's Nightmare. Enough Bull already.

Then came Crying Over You -- not the Roy Orbison one, surely! -- a peppy two-step of indeterminate parentage. The band's own Rebel was renovated so only the chorus was familiar. And Blue House, from the new album Small Miracles, was sped up to 78 rpm. This one had a jaw-dropping solo on piano by Bob Packwood, who plays with a surgeon's precision. Even the dreamy Three Hours Away had a kind of urgency to it. And the hoary Try sounded better than ever -- it had a soulful groove this time; it wasn't exactly Motown but it was definitely somewhere south of Windsor. Alas, given the late start, that's all the lassoing these ears could do.

Luke Doucet and the White Falcon got the party started -- a great choice given the guitar maestro's shimmery, alt-country sound. The timing was perfect too since Doucet's new album Blood's Too Rich is just out. Doucet started at the beginning with the album's first song Long Haul Driver -- not Convoy by any means but something darker and more mysterious. Doucet played what looked to be a juicy Gretsch White Falcon most of the time. It's as big as a grain scoop and has a deep, portentous voice.

Doucet was joined by his wife Melissa McClelland. The set flew by with the sledgehammer blues of The Day Rick Danko Died. It was only later that we'd learn from Cuddy that Doucet was playing with a ski-accident broken thumb -- he was making all those chords without being able to grip the guitar's neck.

© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2008

Thanks for posting the two articles above.  Reading really made me itch for it to be Feb. 14th already!!!!!!

Also, they were well written. (Good job, authors! :p )

http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Artists/B/Blue_Rodeo/ConcertReviews/2008/01/27/4796008-sun.html

January 27, 2008

WINNIPEG -- Looks like all those busking sessions really paid off.

How else to explain how Blue Rodeo -- those much-revered Canadian roots-rockers -- were able to instill their show at MTS Centre last night with so much spontaneous energy, even though they've been at this for almost a quarter-century now?

We're guessing it has something to do with a recent publicity tour that saw the Blue Rodeo gang performing impromptu busking gigs in subways and on street corners, just like they did when they were still alt-country up-and-comers, not one of this country's most cherished musical institutions.

In fact, the boys in the band were apparently such big fans of the format, they chose to open last night's show in a similar style, performing seriously stripped-down versions of their songs for the first 45 minutes or so.

Following a brief comedic interlude -- during which a roadie cued up a turntable to play a snippet of spaghetti-western music -- the band filed onstage and broke into a stark version of 5 Days in May, the kinda-title track from their 1993 disc Five Days in July.

Now, technically, the songs weren't totally unplugged (both an organ and an electric piano were involved), but with the only percussion coming from a brushed stand-alone snare drum, you could pretty much hear a pin drop when Greg Keelor took centre stage for a haunting guitar solo.

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At least, you would've been able to if it weren't for all the cheers coming from the crowd of 5,000, who also ate up the hootenanny versions of Rebel, Try, and 3 Hours Away, plus rollicking covers of James Intveld's Cryin' Over You and the Bee Gees' To Love Somebody.

The tunes saw Keelor and co-frontman Jim Cuddy trading off on lead vocal, occasionally blending their disparate voices (Cuddy's clear and pure, Keelor's rougher and raspier) into a heavenly harmony.

And we're sure the rest of the night was just as euphoric, but unfortunately, our deadline rolled around just as the band was kicking things into high gear by dropping their black curtain to reveal a plugged-in, fully amplified stage set-up.

Earlier in the evening, former Winnipeg resident Luke Doucet opened with a 45-minute set of blues, country and rock that was perfectly suited to Blue Rodeo's rootsy, laid-back vibe.

It helps that Doucet -- who's only 33, but is already a music biz veteran of some 16 years -- has been buddies with the Blue Rodeo gang for more than a decade (he was even scheduled to appear on-stage with the band later in their set).

Wielding his trademark hollow-bodied White Falcon, and flanked by wife (and rhythm guitar player) Melissa McClelland, Doucet kept the hometown crowd happy with guitar-heavy cuts from albums Broken (and other rogue states) and Blood's Too Rich.

That said, the set wasn't quite as incendiary as his recent three-day stint at a certain downtown roots club. But heck, even Doucet seemed to realize that.

"Well, it's not the Times Change(d)," he joked at one point. "But it'll do. It'll have to."

Thanks for this article, LastToKnow.

A fine read.

"Keelor and co-frontman Jim Cuddy"

'Nuff said.

Interview from the Saskatoon Star Phoenix:

http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/arts/story.html?id=bb69f3a8-e6ce-4fa9-8df6-ac9708699697

A song so nice, they play it twice.

Or so it seems on Blue Rodeo's new album Small Miracles. The fourth song Three Hours Away is revisited as the final track, albeit with different instrumentation and a different title, Where I Was Before. Jim Cuddy anticipates the inevitable question.

"What's up with that?" he asks.

The explanation reveals a bit about the inner workings of the veteran Canadian band. Cuddy wrote two versions of the song and was torn between them. He played both for the band at the recording session. Most liked Three Hours Away, which has a more soothing, countrified sound thanks to the pedal steel. That's the one they decided on. But Greg Keelor and co-producer Chris Shreenan-Dyck liked the other. On his own, Shreenan-Dyck put together a second version, replacing the steel with French horn.

"I really liked it," Cuddy said.

They decided to keep both because they give the album a thematic arc -- "this notion of how constant travel unsettles your life. And how there's this incredibly scary anticipation of re-entering your life when you get back from the road." The first version is hopeful. The second has an air of weary surrender.

"It didn't seem like such a stupid idea to reprise it at the end in a more sad way," says Cuddy.

Coincidentally, the songs might also be symbolic of the band itself -- its ability to effortlessly change its sound from, in this case, country to pop.

"It is a bit representative of the band -- we're able to do something in two different styles," Cuddy says.

Indeed, after downloading the band's collected works on iTunes, Cuddy was amused to see how the classification of the albums varies from rock to, in this instance, folk.

There was more collaboration on the new album, more attention to detail, more trust and confidence in newer bandmate Bob Packwood to show what he could do on keyboards. To Cuddy's slight unease, everyone had a hand in it.

"We all sat down together and we really tore the songs apart. Little bit hard for me. I'm used to working very much alone and coming to the band with a fairly finished song."

This time, someone would strum an acoustic and say "I think I've got an ending for that song." To which Cuddy thought, "What do you mean you have an ending for that song?"

Although for him it was "half nightmare and half dream," the process improved the songs.

"They had to go through a rigorous critique before they were allowed to stand on their own."

The first single was the raucous C'Mon. It sounds like a hit but Cuddy doesn't exactly love it.

"I like the song but to me the song just doesn't have the staying power that some of the other songs do. To me, if I've heard the song a couple of times I don't want to hear it again."

Maybe he's right; C'Mon was soon superseded by This Town, with It Makes Me Wonder to follow.

"So really I was right," Cuddy mock-boasts. (As it happens, one of the lines from Wonder is "lucky is the man who learns from his mistake.")

This Town, meanwhile, features Cuddy's own piano playing rather than Packwood's.

"There's nothing that draws your attention. It just goes cling-cling-cling. So the rest of the song has a chance to flower a bit more.

"Every time I play piano the current keyboard player wants to make sure that I fully credit myself. They don't want it mistaken that they played like that," Cuddy laughs.

The many shades of Blue Rodeo will be revealed in the new show, which features some songs the band hasn't done in years -- hence Cuddy's iTunes project. The show will start with a busking session with acoustic guitars and a snare drum. After that, well, you'll just have to see. It would be easy enough to scan the Net and find out in advance, but "I'll keep the mirage of deception going," Cuddy says.

The band rehearsed the show before hitting the road -- more or less.

"Just like pros, actually. We got a big studio and set up the system. It still didn't all work, but we tried to take it seriously."

Travelling west to east, the band winds up its tour with three consecutive shows at Massey Hall. In the band's early days, they had to be talked into playing the historical, formal venue the first time. They'd only played bars until then and were comfortable at the Diamond Club.

"It's very expensive and there's all this level of complication that we just were against. But the crowd was fantastic and they got up and danced and they weren't too controlled by the formality of the room."

The homecoming is nice, but the band is just at home on the range, says Cuddy.

"We like being on the road. We enjoy playing. We like the simplicity of this life. All day all I have to do is get ready for the show tonight. That's a hell of a lot easier than my life at home. You can put all of your focus on just trying to make sure that all the elements of the show are as strong as they need to be. That seems to keep us going.

"Either we're simple-minded," he laughs, "or there's some depth to the simplicity of our lives."

BLUE RODEO

with Luke Doucet
Jan. 25, 8 p.m. TCU Place
Tickets $32.50 to $45.50 plus service charges
Box office: 938-7800, www.ticketmaster.ca

Thanks for posting this, Donna!

I've been asking myself the same inevitable question for a while now, so I'm glad the reporter finally asked it. I wonder why we never asked it here on the boards? Or perhaps someone did, before my time.

Thanks again!

Enikô

Here's a review from Sault Ste. Marie and there is also a link to a photo gallery from the show at the bottom of the review:

http://www.sootoday.com/content/arts/details.asp?c=21882

By Slackhopper
SooToday.com
Thursday, January 31, 2008

As Sault Ste. Marie hunkered down and prepared to weather the coming blizzard Tuesday night, one of Canada's most treasured commodities entertained 1,600 dedicated fans at the Steelback Centre.

Multi-award winning Blue Rodeo eased the audience into a snug acoustic set during the first half of the performance, giving the arena an intimate living room feel.

When the giant black curtain finally dropped and the band plugged in for the second half, it became clear how the not-quite-country group has remained in the hearts of so many people for more than 20 years.

Singers Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor each took turns in the spotlight with impeccable vocal performances.

And just as the rain outside the arena was about to freeze, a gentle snow fell on stage and the band accompanied the crowd during a rousing rendition of Hasn't Hit Me Yet.

Currently touring behind Small Miracles, Blue Rodeo's 11th studio recording, the two-hour career-spanning set list included Try, Five Days In May, To Love Somebody, C'Mon, Till I am Myself Again, This Town, Black Ribbon, 3 Hours Away and Rose Coloured Glasses.

In a textbook example of what an encore should be, the evening came to a crescendo during fan-favourite Lost Together which featured opener Luke Doucet and his wife Melissa McClelland stepping up to the mic.

Blue Rodeo has consistently stretched the country genre, elevating it's accessibility by incorporating elements of rock, pop, soul and folk.

After Tuesday's sampling of Small Miracles, the members of Blue Rodeo have proven their longevity is not a fluke as they masterfully continue to move forward while still remaining true to their roots.

View Photo Gallery for this Story

Thanks so much for posting, DonnaR. :)

It was a nice article and I am so pleased to see a picture of Greg accompanying it. I think it's my fave pic from the photo album too (I see the beard is making a comeback!), although the one that's taken at an angle is also awesome!

Thanks again!

Not sure if this article has already been posted, but I thought it was heartwarming.

From the Calgary Sun

Gift-giving legacy lives on as family makes annual pilgrimage to Blue Rodeo concert in Banff

By KELLY DOODY

FAMILY OF FANS

Shane Brassard was a man of the people. Prior to passing away five years ago after a battle with cancer, the man was a Calgary legend.

He was well-known for having a family so large and extended it accounted for a sizable chunk of the city's population. He was -- in the eyes of many -- the city's founding father of beer league softball and could effortlessly light up a room no matter where it was and regardless of who was in it.

But, like so many great men, Shane's strength as a husband and a father was not in the shopping department.

Some of his more well-known Christmas-present blunders for his wonderful wife Sue included earrings one year -- though she didn't have pierced ears -- and leather cleaner to spruce up the couch the next. So the year he finally hit the mark with two tickets to see Sue's favourite band Blue Rodeo in Banff, Shane officially made up for years of presents that were, perhaps, a little bit off.

As Shane's daughter Amy recalls, "He said to me, 'Amy, after years of bad gifts, when you finally get it right, it makes you look really, really good.'"

It was, in fact, a gift so great it's taken the entire Brassard crew up to Banff to see Blue Rodeo every year since.

And although Shane isn't around to lead the troops -- wife Sue and kids Sarah, Amy, Paul, Erin and Thomas, along with spouses, grandkids, uncles, aunts and cousins -- they manage to keep the tradition alive year after year.

Monday night at The Banff Centre was no exception. The lobby was overtaken by Brassards young and old, sharing stories of concerts past, waiting for Blue Rodeo to take the stage and arguing over who is the better looking of the band's two frontmen.

And sure enough, they'll be back again next year. Same spot in the same lobby, engaged in the same conversations revolving around family and friends, and keeping the memory of Shane -- in all his gift-giving glory -- alive and well.

After all, it's the thought that counts.

Copyright © 2008, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved.