And one from the Vancouver Sun (interview with Jim):

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=19c62547-94c6-4376-8499-ac3cb56f8fbf

BLUE RODEO
Orpheum Theatre
Monday, Tuesday
Tickets $37.50 - $65.50, Ticketmaster

VANCOUVER - It was an unexpected pleasure to answer the phone one morning earlier this week to hear someone merrily whistling on the other end of the line.

The whistling continued for a few seconds until the whistler realized there was someone on the line and he broke off his tune to identify himself as Jim Cuddy (of Blue Rodeo, just in case there was any confusion).

View Larger Image

Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo

Mike Carroccetto/Canwest News Service Files

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There had been little warning of the call and no indication of the unusual greeting, which made it that much better.

"I'm a compulsive whistler," Cuddy says apologetically. "I don't even know I'm doing it. Irritating habit."

It may be irritating for those who spend large amounts of time with the easygoing country-rock crooner, but for those of us who don't know him so well, it indicates a confidence and relaxation that's rare in the music business.

With more than 20 years making music, countless tours across Canada, and a fan base so devoted they would likely buy tickets to a Blue Rodeo puppet show, it's understandable why Cuddy is so relaxed.

Even goofing up on stage can't rattle him after all these years.

When we spoke, Cuddy was just two shows into the band's current tour - which hits the Orpheum for two shows Monday and Tuesday night - and there had been a few hiccups the first night out, in Grand Prairie.

"The first night, a lot of things went wrong," he says.

"But it was fun. It was funny. I think the audience appreciated seeing a little bit of community theatre that didn't always work.

"There were a few moments when we were all laughing at the confusion, the audience and the band. There were spontaneous moments and it was great.

"And then last night was much better. We're gettin' it."

The band - currently composed of Cuddy, his longtime friend and songwriting collaborator Greg Keelor, Bazil Donovan, Bob Egan, Glenn Milchem and Bob Packwood - released its 11th studio album, Small Miracles, last fall.

They took the songs south of the border for a few weeks to work them out in American clubs and bars during a three-week tour that included an impressive entourage of other Canadian musicians.

"We took down Luke Doucet, Oh Susanna, Ron Sexsmith and Justin Rutledge and we all played together. We played their songs and they came up and helped us with ours and it was just one long kind of jamboree," he says.

"We were just playing a lot and getting ready to go out, getting comfortable with what the songs were going to be."
Doucet, who also has a fantastic new album, will be opening for Blue Rodeo, but the rest of that big jamboree lineup from the U.S. stint are not accompanying the band on this tour. Too bad.

Blue Rodeo is one of the hardest touring bands around. They choose to play mostly smaller venues and, as a result, they often play more than one date in the same city. Their regular August show at Stanley Park's Malkin Bowl has become something of an end-of-summer ritual for fans.

Cuddy says - without a hint of humour in his voice - that touring actually provides a welcome break from real life.

"Everybody was very happy to get on the road. Our touring lives are a lot easier than our normal lives," he says.

"It's so streamlined. I don't have anything to do today except get myself ready for the stage tonight at 8:45.

"But at home I would have umpteen things to do and it would probably start at 8:30 in the morning and then at the end of the night you feel like you haven't gotten everything done.

"I end the night, when I'm on tour, with people applauding. That's a good life. You wouldn't mind everyone applauding you to bed, would you?"

After 23 years of performing with Blue Rodeo, Cuddy has understandably grown accustomed to cheers and applause and a certain degree of popularity.

With a rock-solid reputation as an upstanding good guy - he's been married for more than 20 years, has three children and is actively involved in his Toronto neighbourhood - it's easy to wonder if he would ever enter politics.

He has a good laugh before answering that question.

"It's got a certain appeal," he offers.

"But then every time I do anything that involves a broader consensus and everyone gets a voice, I don't know that I could do it. I sit on a couple boards and I even have difficulty with that.

"I'm so used to living in this kind of benevolent dictatorship that I live in and I'm one of the benevolent dictators.

"I appreciate people who do run for office ... But I'm used to getting my way."

Instead, he thinks he'll keep playing music and touring with his band.

"I must admit, one of the appealing things about this music is that it isn't particularly age-specific. It's not about being young. It adapts to whatever age you are," he says.

 "We love making music and as long as we have the physical wherewithal to do it, I'm not sure there would be any compelling reason to stop."

More good reason to whistle.

Here's an interview with Greg from the Vancouver Province:

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/etoday/story.html?id=4bad3664-fddc-4bdc-8e73-d9a322676e28

Just think of it: This week it's been hovering between -19°C and -21°C in Grande Prairie, Alberta. In Calgary it's been dipping to -14°C. Oh, but it's a dry cold, they tell you, applying ChapStick to foreheads, noses, teeth, anything exposed. You don't really feel it, they mumble, lips frozen in a death grimace.

Here is where Blue Rodeo, Canada's premier roots/rock band these past two decades, has chosen to launch its current 40-date, cross-country tour promoting their latest musical offering, Small Miracles. It's something they like to do. While the rest of us huddle, waiting for spring, these Sons of Ontario pack their toques, load the bus with old, favoured instruments a lot of two-fours and give 'er, eh? They could make a Tim's commercial out of it.

Actually, there is one non-Ontarian in the band, American steel player Bob Egan, former member of legendary Chicago-based alt-country pioneers, Wilco. But Illinois gets as wintry as Ontario so it's no stretch for him to venture out with drummer Glenn Milchem, bassist Bazil Donovan and frontmen/founders Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor for these tundra tours.

Keelor and Jim Cuddy first met in high-school math class but didn't start playing music together until after university. They cut their musical teeth in New York, where they eventually went in and recorded a bunch of demos -- "Try" and "Rose Coloured Glasses" among them. They returned to Toronto in the mid-'80s, found Bazil Donovan, and Blue Rodeo was born.

By the 1987 release of their debut Outskirts album, Blue Rodeo had a solid rep in the Toronto area and within months they had a Canadian hit, selling an amazing 200,000-plus.

Since then they've become an institution in this country to the point where, 20 years after forming and 30 years since Keelor and Cuddy first met, the University of Toronto is now housing Cuddy's collection of Blue Rodeo tapes, papers, videos, photos and other memorabilia valued at some $800,000 in a permanent, temperature-controlled archive.

So, sure enough, on the day of release of the Small Miracles album last September the band went out busking at various locations around Toronto, starting at bustling Union Station and moving on to a museum here and a mall there, where some passersby shook their heads in wonderment that, tsk tsk, it had come to this.

"Yeah, we played at seven or eight places," says Keelor, "including Princess Margaret Hospital and that was actually very powerful. It just meant so much to so many people that they could just get out of their rooms and hear us. You know, a lot of those people in there are not getting out. That's a serious hospital, the cancer hospital. You felt the power of song and how it can be so uplifting."

jpmac@gmx.net

IN CONCERT
Blue Rodeo
Where: Orpheum Theatre, 884 Granville St.
When: Tomorrow and Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $37.50 to $65.50 at Ticketmaster

Here's a good article about Luke Doucet. I'm putting it here because it's within the context of the tour, although if the mods wish to move it, that is their prerogative.

Luke Doucet hopes he's through with auditioning

(from the Ottawa Citizen)

Picture of Luke (from the article)

Imagine being a Juno-nominated and critically respected singer with six albums to your credit, but one who is a little short on notoriety. Then entertain the idea of being offered a 20-date nationwide tour opening for fan favourites Blue Rodeo -- your musical idols -- that begins the very day your seventh effort hits record stores.

By any count, that's pretty much a perfect scenario.

When we spoke with the receiver of said Midas touch -- singer-songwriter Luke Doucet -- just three days into his tour with Blue Rodeo, he was still learning about the pros and cons of his enviable position.

The pros? An nightly audience of roughly 3,000 and a sharp new record, Blood's Too Rich, from which to draw. The cons? Bad press.

Doucet's trek with Blue Rodeo started Sunday with a well-received concert in Grand Prairie, Alta., and is expected to stop in Ottawa in March. But less than a day later, following the first of two gigs at Edmonton's Jubilee Auditorium, the Toronto resident found himself the target of a newspaper critic, who said Doucet's set "fell squarely in the middle of the muddy road in the land of alt-country -- a place that can be just as corny and pretentious as Music City hot country."

"It was the worst thrashing I've ever received in my career," Doucet says.

"You pretend that stuff's not going to bother you, because you don't read your own reviews, right? But I made the mistake of doing so and realized, 'Oh my god.'"

Having licked their wounds, Doucet and his band, The White Falcon, are up to speed.

"It didn't make it any easier for me to get on stage," he says. "I had to conjure up any sort of defiance that I could muster and that made it work."

It was inevitable that Doucet would bounce back.

The 33-year-old, who got his professional start at 18, has plenty of experience under his belt, from extensive tours as a guitarist in Sarah McLachlan's band to guest turns on studio recordings by Chantal Kreviazuk and Oh Susanna. Doucet also sees regular work as a producer.

But once he steps out with his backing band, which includes his wife, singer Melissa McClelland, Doucet is hurtled from the comfy confines of an arena back to dues-paying basics.

"It's very common for me to play for audiences who don't know my stuff, that's sort of the nature of being an independent artist who doesn't have a massive fan base. I refer to it as a constant state of auditioning."

Blood's Too Rich, which Doucet wrote last year during a six-month stay in Nashville, could perhaps be his final "audition."

In recent years, Doucet says he struggled with being a "hired hand" for McLachlan, and went through a nasty breakup (he married McClelland in 2006).

But he found artistic happiness on Blood's Too Rich, and found a renewed sense of purpose.

Doucet over-thought records in the past. And though he earned a 2006 Juno Award nomination for Broken (and other rogue states) -- his breakup album, à la Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks -- Blood's Too Rich explodes emotionally like nothing in his back catalogue.

He delved deep into his family history on the record, and emerged with a batch of true-to-life tales. With a red-hot crop of guest studio musicians, including his new wife and three members of Blue Rodeo, at his side, he put to tape Cleveland, one of the best tunes of his career.

With a whopping running time of 7:23, it's also one of his longest.

"I have censored my records a little bit because I've always thought (a song like Cleveland) was self-indulgent and people wouldn't want to listen to it. But I didn't want to always cram what I do into 3 1/2-minute soundbites. When I get on stage I'm inclined to stretch things out."

If anything, Doucet says Blood's Too Rich represents the perfect union between the stage and the studio.

"I've explored lots of styles in the past. There's what I can do, which is a few things, and then there's what's necessary, and that's a few things. When I find common overlap, I know it's time to make that record."

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

I think it's entirely appropriate that this article about Luke is included and thanks RabbitPrincess and everyone else who has posted -  Donna especially for starting this thread!  It is quite entertaining to read the various articles as they are posted and this one on Luke is no exception to the rule!

 Even when the articles are not positive or particularly well-written (imho) as in the one Luke refers to, they are still something to mull over.  I hope he didn't lose any sleep over that specific one though...I was tempted to dissect that one as a piece of particularly poorly crafted, pretentious, prurient poppycock.

I'm really looking forward to seeing Luke and The White Falcon open in Barrie.

ann:

I think it's entirely appropriate that this article about Luke is included and thanks RabbitPrincess and everyone else who has posted -  Donna especially for starting this thread!  It is quite entertaining to read the various articles as they are posted and this one on Luke is no exception to the rule!

 Even when the articles are not positive or particularly well-written (imho) as in the one Luke refers to, they are still something to mull over.  I hope he didn't lose any sleep over that specific one though...I was tempted to dissect that one as a piece of particularly poorly crafted, pretentious, prurient poppycock.

I'm really looking forward to seeing Luke and The White Falcon open in Barrie.

Thanks, Ann! Glad you enjoyed the article. I was quite pleased to read it, especially as an antidote to that other article. (Nice alliteration, by the way! )

ann:

I think it's entirely appropriate that this article about Luke is included and thanks RabbitPrincess and everyone else who has posted -  Donna especially for starting this thread! 

Actually it wasn't me - it was FallenDownBlue who started the thread - thanks FDB!!

I'm so glad you guys are posting these articles (all of 'em!)! I never would have come across them otherwise.

I am especially glad to find out that Greg likes winter! :D Not that I'm surprised, with all the snow in his lyrics! But I find that's rare, even among Canadians. Sometimes, at work, I say, "C'est beau, l'hiver!" and my boss looks like she could kill me! :(

Updated my siggy with Greg's quote, btw. I had to shorten it a big 'cause I had too many characters but still, it says what needs to be said! ;)

Hi Folks... Here is a link to the Globe and Mail's review of the Monday Vancouver show:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080116.BLUE16/TPStory/?query=blue+rodeo

granolaGirl:

Hi Folks... Here is a link to the Globe and Mail's review of the Monday Vancouver show:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080116.BLUE16/TPStory/?query=blue+rodeo

Crowd

Middle-aged couples and neatly dressed young folks that look like they don't cause any trouble.

LOL I wonder which category I would fit into! I am neither middle-aged, part of a couple, or neatly dressed!

Here's the review from the Victoria Times Colonist:

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=fbbb11ee-61b7-4b47-a88c-a2307c3927f7&k=21535

Who: Blue Rodeo
When: Sunday night
Where: Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre

Almost a quarter century after they began, the popular Toronto band fronted by Jim Cuddy still charms, soothes and moves with its jangly roots-rock.

Times Colonist file

Rating: 4 (out of five stars)

So what does Canadian rock look like in middle age?

Pretty darned good, judging from Blue Rodeo's enjoyable concert last night in Victoria. Almost a quarter century after they began, the popular Toronto band still charms, soothes and moves with its jangly roots-rock.

Inspired perhaps by busking gigs they played last year to promote their new disc Small Miracles, Blue Rodeo played the first nine tunes in pared-down style. Drummer Glenn Milchem was relegated to a single snare drum, while frontmen Greg Keelor and Jim Cuddy sang and strummed acoustic guitars.

For many in the mellow but enthused audience, the highlight of this section was doubtlessly Blue Rodeo's Canadian chart-topper, Try. Cuddy's known for his big weepy ballads, and Try is the biggest and the weepiest. (Heck, the lady beside me, who drove all the way from Qualicum for the gig, said it was her fave.)

No one can deny it's a great love song. Cuddy, playing a guitar with two red roses painted on, impressed with his soulful falsetto. And Bob Packwood dispatched a tasty Floyd Cramer-style piano solo.

At this point in their career, Blue Rodeo boasts oodles of strong material upon which to draw. Tunes like Bad Timing and Til I Am Myself Again sound like pop radio classics, which indeed they are.

A beardless Keelor livened up the first half hour with an upbeat new song, Blue House, which bopped along to a snappy snare beat and benefited from a beautiful steel-guitar solo courtesy of the ever-tasteful Bob Egan. One of the night's wild cards was the band's cover of the Bee Gees' To Love Somebody. Its bitter-sweet melodicism is well suited to Blue Rodeo, and Keelor managed to make it his own.

Til I Am Myself Again from the 1990 Casino album marked the end of the acoustic set and brought the entire floor to its feet. A black curtain dropped, Milchem began whacking a full drum-kit, the amps were cranked, and Blue Rodeo shifted into full electric gear.

Overall, Blue Rodeo's music, unlike that of many bands launched in the '80s, still wears well in 2008. Rather than the angular, sometimes angry sound favoured by groups informed by punk, metal or arty experimentalism, their music is strongly influenced by such classic acts as the Beatles, the Band and a host of other melody-huggers from the '60s.

Two key strengths underlie their staying power. Both Keelor and Cuddy are, and have always been, strong songwriters. Cuddy favours lush romantic ballads; Keelor likes to walk on the dark side lyrically. Yet both know the power of strong hooks and singalong choruses. And the pair sound Lennon-and-McCartney-magical when their voices harmonize.

Canadian singer-songwriter Luke Doucet provided an enjoyable opening set of original alt-country tunes. Accompanied by a three-piece that includes his wife on vocals and guitar, Doucet proved himself a master of the country-honk guitar, twanging away on a jumbo white Gretsch. His best tune was The Day Rick Danko Died, a Dylanesque tribute to the Band's famous bassist.

Doucet's singing doesn't match his precise and imaginative fretboard work. His voice, although serviceable, sounds ordinary and a tad thinnish. Still, his songwriting shows definite promise.

Thanks for posting, Donna!

It's a good article, although you must permit me an indignant *hmph!* at the title. "Fronted by Jim Cuddy?" wth?!?!?! Last time I checked (and I don't NEED to check!) BR had two frontmen. Nevertheless - far be it for me to be unforgiving! - Mr. Adrian Chamberlain redeemed himself in the third paragraph. I was starting to wonder if, without the beard, he mistakenly thought Greg and Jim were the same person?! Puh-lease!

Our local paper printed the review of last Saturday night's concert in Salmon Arm.

 On the front page was this pic (about 5x8)  

CLICK FOR PIC

and the review:

Blue Rodeo charms crowd

Frontman: Jim Cuddy, who shares Blue Rodeo vocal duties with Greg Keelor, gave the crowd plenty to cheer about at Saturday night’s concert.

James Murray/Observer

Sunwave Centre: Event mixes old favourites with new sounds to the delight of local fans.

The Sunwave Centre was the place to be on Saturday night as Canadian music icons, Blue Rodeo, rocked a packed house with old favourites plus new songs from their recently released CD Small Miracles.

The Salmon Arm gig was the band’s only stop in the B.C. Interior during their latest tour which started on Jan. 6 and includes 40-plus dates across Canada. Immediately following the local show, the band left for Victoria where they played Sunday night.

“I thought it was amazing,” said Jim Cuddy who, along with longtime music partner Greg Keelor, founded the band and acts as the group’s frontman. “We played here before, the Roots and Blues, which I remember as being fun, but this was a really good crowd. They were really into it, enthusiastic... It was a fun night.”

The band mixed old favourites like Try, Rose Coloured Glasses and What Am I Doing Here (which included Keelor’s traditional introduction story) with cuts from Small Miracles such as So Far Away, 3 Hours and the first single, C’mon. The new CD is receiving rave reviews from music critics across Canada. Cuddy talked about the process of putting together the band’s 11th studio set (to go along with two greatest hits packages).

“It was a little more arduous,” he said. “We didn’t try to do anything fast. We all sat together, tore the songs apart and put them back together, went over and over the openings and the closings, did everything you can do to make a song right. Sometimes our impulse is to get in there and do things fast..., use the first take that has some spontaneity. This time, we wanted to really sculpt the songs.”

Like all their previous recordings, Small Miracles is a well-balanced mixture of ballads and faster, rollicking numbers, and features equal amounts of Cuddy’s and Keelor’s distinctive vocals. Cuddy was asked if the even distribution is the group’s plan going into the making of a record.

“I guess that it probably is,” he said. “We have a kind of imprint of what a record should sound like and we don’t want to load it up with too much of this or too much of that. But, more consciously, we want to sculpt every song to get as much out of them as possible. We want to make it (a CD) so it has a main path but then with a lot of smaller paths running off the main one... that’s what we think makes a substantial record.”

The band has been together since 1984 and rose to prominence in 1987 with the release of their first record, Outskirts. Cuddy was asked about the group’s longevity and success (multiple Juno Awards, including four as Canada’s best group, and SOCAN Awards) since he and Keelor began their collaboration.

“I don’t know if there is really a secret,” he said. “The only thing we’ve ever followed, as an operating principal, is to just keep going out there and playing. The fact that people respond is the inexplicable and you’re lucky when they do. One thing is... you pretty much know that, if you live in Canada and you like our band, we are going to play somewhere near where you are. There is a dependability in that.”

Asked if the fact that band members go off and do solo projects has been a positive factor in their long-time success, Cuddy agreed it has helped.

“It’s that, but it’s all kind of things,” he said. “It’s just what we have to do after all these years. Everyone has an impulse to go and do something, and now that we’ve been able to incorporate so many different things, we’re not afraid of those things. We don’t feel like they threaten the main gig and it’s all OK. If people want to work when they’re off, like I do, that’s fine. You can’t have too many restrictions if you want to keep going.”

 From http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_thompson_nicola/salmonarmobserver/entertainment/13854972.html

Thanks for posting this article! :o)

I love Jim's quote in the seventh paragraph, when he explains how the CD has a main path and other, smaller ones, leading off in different directions. I've always recognized that as what makes all their albums into cohesive units but have lacked the words (or the proper simile, I guess!) to express it.

Something troubles me, though; perhaps someone can help me out. This is the second time I see Jim refered to as the band's "front man", although in this article it is plain that the writer knows Jim and Greg cofounded Blue Rodeo. So what gives? Enlighten me, please!