I saw this in today's Toronto Star, thought I should post it on here and share it with you folks. Incidently, Greg Quill needs to get his facts right - the Princess Margaret show on the busking tour wasn't the end of the day, it was only halfway through it - I should know, I was there for the whole thing! 
Hehehe...
Anyway, the article: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/305778
GREG QUILL
ENTERTAINMENT COLUMNIST
Rock stars with Jim Cuddy's mileage usually remember the high times first: those moments of extravagance or transcendence; meeting the rich, the famous and powerful; and the unexpected privileges accorded a consistently productive and enduringly popular band with a history going back 20-odd years.
But topping his memory, as he eases back into a severely abused sofa in Blue Rodeo's well-camouflaged office/studio bunker just off the Danforth pub strip, is the low-grade busking stunt the band pulled one sunny day last fall, when its thrice Juno-nominated 11th album, Small Miracles, was released.
"It was just us on acoustic instruments and singing without amplification," he explains. "I've never felt so naked. I remember looking at (co-front man) Greg (Keelor) and the other guys on the street outside Union Station and we all just swallowed and shrugged and started playing, fearing the worst. It wasn't announced, no one knew we were going to be there. But in a few moments we had a crowd of 60 to 100 people standing around ... they'd recognized us and were on their cellphones calling friends and taking pictures."
The busking tour, which took Blue Rodeo to street corners all over the downtown core that day, from the Royal Ontario Museum to the TD Centre and ending at Princess Margaret Hospital, brought the band back to the ground, returning them to origins humbler than those they experienced during their early years in Toronto's clubs and small concert spaces. And it brought them face to face once more with the reality of what their music – music in general – means to the people whose faces are usually invisible in the darkness beyond the footlights, lost in a sea of distant noise and colour and movement.
"It's the smiles I remember," Cuddy explains. "The music made them happy ... it took them out of themselves, even for a moment. At the hospital, people were so grateful. I guess they don't get much entertainment there. One man told me it was the first time in years that he'd felt like putting on his shoes and dancing."
In the dead of winter, Blue Rodeo's traditional touring season, the memory seems to warm him. On this rare day at home during a gruelling cross-country schedule that will bring them to Toronto for three nights at Massey Hall Thursday through Saturday, then off to the western and southern U.S., Cuddy is happy not to be on the move.
"I was backstage at one of Rush's shows – and they do really big shows that are physically so much more demanding than ours – I remember (guitarist) Alex (Lifeson) saying, `I love it, but I'm so tired.' And I knew exactly what he meant. After so long and at a certain age, the constant grind can wear you down."
Especially since Blue Rodeo are touring on the heels of Cuddy's own solo tour fronting his eponymous band following the release of his second solo album, The Light That Guides You Home, in late 2006.
Blue Rodeo also has so much more concert competition in a season that they once had to themselves for so long. They tour in winter in order to spend summers with their families and children, an important part of the band's modus operandi, Cuddy explains.
"And now everyone's out there – Michael Bublé, John Mellencamp, Bon Jovi, Rascal Flatts."
Adapting is something Blue Rodeo does well. It's built into a long-term survival strategy that has provided principal songwriters Cuddy and Keelor, and their sidekicks, bassist Bazil Donovan, drummer Glenn Milchem, lap-steel specialist Bob Egan and keyboardist Bob Packwood, with a comfortable existence, a relatively novel concept in the music game.
"We have a small, specialized market, and we come to it frequently, like regular visitors," Cuddy says. "They can count on us, and that keeps them coming back."
That audience is also broad enough – from diehard alt.country fans to suburban moms and dads, and now their children – to allow the band to indulge in a rich and adventurous musical palette.
"We're even doing a bossa nova on this tour, one of Greg's songs from the new album ... most country bands can't go there," Cuddy chuckles. "And within the band there has always been a pretty strong will to change our recording methods each time out. We have very different, very strong personalities in Blue Rodeo, and nothing is done the same way twice."
And contrary to rumours, a recent flood of solo recordings by Blue Rodeo band members Cuddy, Keelor, Egan – and Donovan's various off-site gigs with other artists – aren't signs that the core band's spirit is on the wane.
"Just the opposite," Cuddy says. "As well as we do with our solo stuff, it's always Blue Rodeo people want to see. Ninety per cent of the audiences at my solo shows would rather see me with the band. They accept our solo efforts as a diversion, not a threat to Blue Rodeo. While the band is and always will be a collection of strong individuals, it's really about the collective.
"When I bring in songs for consideration, the other guys are my judges and jury. It's like playing for six different producers, each working on ideas for the arrangement. Sometimes I've abandoned songs completely after they've been rejected two or three times by the band.
"They're bruised ... they go away, sometimes never to be heard again."
Getting personal with Jim Cuddy
1. What was your first job?
A paper route in Montreal during the summer of Expo 67. Everyday I would go to Expo during the day, come home and do my route and then head back to Expo.
2. What's on your iPod?
The Weakerthans' latest, Iron and Wine's The Shepherds Dog and a lot of the (XM Satellite Radio) Bob Dylan Theme Time Radio Hour.
3. What's the last good movie you saw?
Away From Her.
4. If you weren't a musician, what would you be doing?
I had law school deferred three times before I decided to be a musician, so I'd probably be a very unhappy lawyer.
5. What TV show do you always have to catch?
Nothing I have to catch on a weekly basis. Really, I only watch the Leafs.
- Greg Quill
Jim Cuddy miscellanea
"Countrywide Soul," one of the key songs on Cuddy's 2006 solo CD The Light That Guides You Home, was rejected three times by the other members of Blue Rodeo and languished for a couple of years till Cuddy revived it with his side outfit The Jim Cuddy Band.
Blue Rodeo's "Till I Am Myself Again," one of the band's most popular and empowering songs, was written from the perspective of a close friend who was battling alcohol addiction and needed time, spiritual strength and the patience of his loved ones to recover. Happily, he did.
Blue Rodeo will perform for Canadian troops in Afghanistan next month.
Cuddy, 52, has been married for more than 20 years to actress Rena Polley. They have three children and are actively involved in the east-end Toronto neighbourhood where they live.
Jim's brother, Loftus Cuddy, was a Conservative candidate for the riding of Toronto-Danforth in the 2004 federal election. Jim did not vote for him.
Blue Rodeo was well into recording Small Miracles when Cuddy observed that most of the songs he and bandmate Greg Keelor brought to the sessions had the same theme: "We are who we are, and we're never going to change – let's deal with that."
- Greg Quill
~ ...and all the demons are saints, and the saints I'll never trust...~ Blue Rodeo - "Graveyard"
~...Had a dream where everybody looked like someone else, and the farthest I could get from was the closest to myself...~ Men Without Hats - "Sideways"