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I saw Blue Rodeo for the first time because I’d heard they were the only band on Toronto’s club strip that played past last call. It was too early to go home and I’d also heard that they were really, really good.

As I blasted into the Horseshoe’s back room that night, determined to get my final beer and then see what all of the fuss was about, I was gripped by the energy even before the sound. Probably playing their 20th song of the night, a beaming Cuddy was slapping at a big red guitar while Keelor was hunched over, plucking out a ferocious lead, as the band tore through a passionate take on Glenn Campbell’s “Galveston.”

Hearing a set that included more cool covers and early versions of the tunes that would later become their amazing Outskirts debut, I was hooked – along with a room full of dancing, shouting people who weren’t going home for a while.

Imagine looking for late-night beer and stumbling into Cuddy testing “try” for one of the first times ever. Or seeing Keelor bouncing up and down singing about his girl in “Rose-Colored Glasses” with all the loud intimacy of a tale shared between bar stool buddies.

Blue Rodeo’s lead singers were joined by Bazil Donovan, the bass-playing every-man who was everywhere in Toronto at the time. Bazil played up and down both sides of Queen Street, using his fluid, melodic bass to anchor new wave bands like the Sharks on the trendy side – while not being afraid to step into dingy draught dungeons called the Duke of Something to shore up the rhythm section of old-time country bands with a bit of attitude.

This trio remains at the core of Blue Rodeo, but in the early days they were bolstered by Donovan’s longtime rhythm pal and equally incessant player, Cleave Anderson, who shared his bass playing buddy’s ability to lay down beats more compelling than most you’d hear in a band with a taste for country. With Cleave’s departure, Mark French made great contributions to a Casino era band.

And inspired keyboard player Bobby Wiseman added another touch of instrumental innovation, flailing and flying onstage, hanging onto his Acetone with the urgency of someone whose hands were trapped inside the doors of a speeding train.

Blue Rodeo had a post-punk ethic, a ‘who needs record companies?’ attitude that saw them play every chance they got, to build a following that spoke louder than any A&R guy ever could. They were likely to finish off a full night in the clubs with a set at a local speakeasy and then, as now, the Rodeo players always seemed to have energy for a post-show jam no matter how late.

They performed every night to build an audience, and they became great players and singers along the way. They learned that unspoken language of intimates that allows them to anticipate and challenge each other on stage or in the studio, even today.

They infused country music story-telling with a whole new set of themes. And they tapped into pop power without ever being trivial. Blue Rodeo was one of the first bands to emerge from a scene that would also produce Jane Siberry, Cowboy Junkies, Skydiggers, Molly Johnson and The Tragically Hip. And they have always drawn from their creative colleagues as much as represented them. For a band that plays so much, Blue Rodeo has been doing a lot of listening over the years.

A new Blue Rodeo emerged in ’93 with the release of 5 Days. This band included: Kim Deschamps adding his stately pedal steel and dobro, Glenn Milchem, a ferocious and complex drummer who showed his deep musicianship and subtlety by performing the entire record with brushes, and James Gray whose heroic baptism by fire at Ontario Place in ’92 proved that the future looked good.

Bob Egan now plays pedal steel and other assorted guitars for the band.

A band that still takes as much pride in the bar sales records they’ve set as they do in their ability to deliver blues-bursting ballads, Blue Rodeo have reached that iconic place. People can bookmark times in their life by a soaring solo or an opening chord, and over the years they have unwittingly written a soundtrack to an unfolding movie that is filled with hope, heartbreak and passion.

They’ve delivered summer songs and highway tunes and they get played at weddings. They’ve represented Canada musically at World Fairs and the Olympics, on late-night talk shows and in big Hollywood pictures. You’ve heard them at hockey games and playing at the cottage down the lake but, for all their success, for each listener they are confidantes. Close friends who tell important truths. Good buddies who get you smiling again.

Michael Hollett - Editor/Publisher NOW Magazine * * * Blue Rodeo was born out of the Toronto club scene in the mid-Eighties. Led by singer/songwriters Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor, the band released their debut album, Outskirts, in March 1987. Since that time they have released a total of nine full-length albums which have sold over 3 million copies world-wide. Over the course of their career Cuddy and Keelor have become acknowledged as Canada’s premiere songwriting team. In addition to presenting a collection of established hits, Blue Rodeo Greatest Hits Vol. 1 includes two new tracks recorded in the band’s newly built studios in downtown Toronto. The band has produced a re-working of the their hit “After The Rain” while Greg Keelor delivers an emotional rendering of the Bee Gee’s classic “To Love Somebody.” With these recording, fans of Blue Rodeo will have their first chance to hear the band’s new Stax-influenced sound which features the Planet Soul Horns.