Greg Keelor: From Highschool to the Hall of Fame

By Karen Bliss

Some 45 years after Greg Keelor started a musical partnership with Jim Cuddy, the singer-guitarist who co-fronts country-rock band Blue Rodeo, says, “The vibrations of our voices is something that gets me high, still.” The pair will be inducted into Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, Sept. 28, at Toronto’s Massey Hall, alongside fellow cultural icons Tom Cochrane, Sarah McLachlan, and Diane Tell.

Keelor and Cuddy played in The Hi-Fi’s together in 1979 in Toronto, before forming Blue Rodeo, which had immediate success from the jump with 1985’s Outskirts, featuring the enduring ballad “Try,” “Rose-Coloured Glasses” and first-ever single, “Outskirts.” Through 15 more studio albums, most recently 2021’s Many A Mile, the two kept producing hits that became a part of our lives: “5 Days in May,” “Bad Timing,” “Til I Am Myself Again,” “After the Rain” and countless more. The band has 13 JUNO Awards and is both in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and has a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame.

Cuddy just put out his latest solo album, All The World Fades Away, but Keelor was the first of the band to do so, 1996’s Gone, and has since released a handful of solo projects, including 2005’s Seven Songs for Jim, 2006’s Aphrodite Rose; 2010’s soundtrack to the film Gunless, 2018’s collab with Travis Good and Gordon Pinsent called Down and Out in Upalong, 2018’s Last Winter, and 2021’s Share The Love.

Keelor talked to Karen Bliss about the CSHF induction, why his partnership with Cuddy has lasted all these decades, how “lucky” he feels to be surrounded by brilliant bandmates, and what he’ll be doing on his 70th birthday, August 29.

You’ve received so many career honours. How is this one different for you?
I think I’m getting a little more sentimental in my old age.

In what sense? Because you’re receiving it with Jim?
No, I mean with these awards. I’ve always felt a little awkward with all these awards, you know? It’s a very pleasant awkwardness. My heroes were guys like Groucho Marx who said “I’d never join a club that would accept me,” that sort of thing.  So, I’ve always had that sideways look about things. And so, as I get older, I get a little more sentimental. This has a very sweet meaning to it, and it’s greatly appreciated.

It’s a very specialized, very specific award, for your songwriting. That is how you’ve made a living all these years. There are millions of musicians in the world who write songs, but it’s a great skill to be able to have people connect with them.
Yeah, as you describe it, it’s a very strange thing, isn’t it?

All the Hall of Fame inductees will then get a permanent display at the National Music Centre in Calgary. Have they asked you yet to contribute any memorabilia? Do you know what you’ll be giving them?
This is the first time I’m hearing about it. I’ll have to think about that.

What about the fact that you’re getting this award alongside Jim?
Well, we’ve had this incredible storied life. I’ve always been in awe of it a bit. A couple of high school buddies. I didn’t even play guitar at the time. We just met and then our lives just traveled down the same path. Even though we did lots of different things when we were younger, we eventually reunited with music.

Jim is one of the inspirations of why I play guitar. Him and his buddies would sit around and they’d play music and sing songs. And I couldn’t play guitar and I was way too self-conscious to try to sing. And I would just sit in the background and get drunk, get high, and the whole time, I always was, “God, I wish I could do that; I want to do that.”

And then we both ended up in the mountains, Lake Louise and Banff in the early 70s. He was down at Banff; I was up in Lake Louise and my roommate had an acoustic guitar and I just picked it up. He had a Gordon Lightfoot book and I started to learn songs out of that. And so, Jim and I, we just got together, and we just started writing songs together and we thought we’d put a band together.

And 45 years later, here we are talking about it.
Yeah, I love the story. I love the story of Jim and Greg and Blue Rodeo.

I don’t know if anyone’s ever done a study. I’ve heard seven years is the average lifespan of a band. Blue Rodeo, 40-plus years. And there can’t possibly be that many songwriting partnerships that have lasted this long. It’s probably your longest relationship.
Yeah, for both of us.

 What is it about the two of you that works?
Well, it’s like many things in life. There are things that are just fated and there’s no real explanation for it, but there’s this great trail of coincidence and synchronicity that sort of unfolds and our combined energy just had a momentum to it. And, I know how much I’ve always enjoyed singing with Jim. The vibrations of our voices is something that gets me high still. I love it. And also, it’s unique. That’s a big reason why it works because we both still get high doing it.

Also, it’s unique to have two lead vocalists in a band. When you started in a band, were you writing together or was it always, “These are my songs and this is my vibe” and “These are my songs and this is my vibe,” and then you come together to put the dressing on it? Has anything changed in that department, in terms of how you write?
When we first started, we wrote knee to knee, guitar to guitar. And we’d sit there and work out a song, work out the middle eight, work out the chorus and we’d do it all together. And that would have been a band called The Hi-Fi’s. We started, I guess, in ‘78. And so most of The Hi-Fi’s songs were very sort of Lennon-McCartney, sitting in a bedroom, or wherever, writing songs, and then bringing them to the band.

By the time we went to record our first record, ‘83, ‘84, we were writing more separately and then bringing stuff to each other and shaping it a bit, and then bringing it to the band. And then, eventually, I moved out to the country in ‘92 or three. And then it wasn’t the same thing. I’d write a song here; he’d write a song there and we’d just bring it to the band independently.

You were the first member of the band to do a solo record. What do you think makes song a Greg Keelor song versus a Blue Rodeo song? Is it just timing or is it more than that?
The first solo record was specific in what the songs were about. At that time, I had discovered that I was adopted, and my original name was Francis McIntyre. And my mother was from Foot Cape and Cape Breton, all these amazing things I was discovering. At the same time, I went to India to hang out with a guru. And so I was looking for my cosmic parents, you know, and when you meet your mother at 40, it’s a strange experience. Driving out to Cape Breton to find the whole thing was just fantastic.

So that record, all those songs, are about that journey. But any of them could have been Blue Rodeo songs. I never really drew the line of, “This is a Blue Rodeo song; this is a Greg Keeler song.” I was just writing, writing, writing, and if it was Blue Rodeo time, it was Blue Rodeo time. But often with a solo record, you say I’ve got these extra songs and you start recording them and then you write other songs in that. And so, to me, they’re mildly thematic. But that’s all.

You and Jim, and the other guys too, have proven that you can have a long, solid career in a band and do all these other bits and pieces.  You’re always playing.  Jim just released another solo album and is touring.  I always see online, say, Bazil [Donovan], posting he’s playing at the Rivoli or Glenn [Milchem] is at the Dakota, with their fun side projects. You all just love playing.
Well, it’s a band of gifted musicians who just love to play. Bazil and Glenn, they’re playing around Toronto, as you say, the Cameron, Grossman’s, the Rivoli, they’re always playing.

And Colin [Cripps] is producing records and he’s got his band too. Mike Boguski is putting out tons of music, playing jazz, and Jimmy Bowskill, he’s got his own band [Brooks & Bowskill] with his wife [Brittany Brooks] and they’re playing and recording all the time. So we’ve always been lucky. This incarnation of the band — we’ve always been surrounded by brilliant musicians — and that has allowed us to just to feel confident in bringing in songs and knowing that with this group of people that work at it. And we’ve had that throughout our career, just great engineers and great musicians too.

Every summer, end of summer, Blue Rodeo headlines this massive, beautiful show at Budweiser Stage [in Toronto]. You have 16,000 people that show up year after year and sing all your songs. It’s an annual thing for people now.
Yeah, it shas become an end-of-summer destination sing-along. You just go, “How can we be so lucky to be in this position where all these people come and they sing our songs back to us?” It’s a pretty joyous thing and we certainly don’t take it for granted.

You’re turning 70 this month. Do you have anything special planned?
I’m gonna have a nice, quiet night in Vancouver at the PNE [Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver] with 12,000 fans.

[Laughs]. That’s cool. That’ll be fun. Do you reflect back, now, “Holy shit, I’m 70 and I’ve spent my adult life as a songwriter, a musician. What a unique, cool way to go through your life.”
Oh, I’m in awe of it all the time. There’s nothing better than doing my job.  I got a guitar and I just noodle around and play songs and try to write a song. And, yeah, I’ve been doing it forever.

You must have attended other Canadian Songwriter Hall of Fame ceremonies. Have you played any?
We played one a long time ago. We did Hank Snow and Gordon Lightfoot. I just watched a bit of our Lightfoot tribute at Massey Hall [May 23^rd’s Celebrating Gordon Lightfoot, streaming on CBC Gem] and it’s good. I was impressed.

You must have some stories with Tom Cochrane.
You know, I’ve never really hung out with Tom.

What? How is that possible?
I’ve only been at backstage stuff with him, where “Hi, how are you,” but I’ve never really been with Tom. Jim has played with him and hung out with him a lot, but I’ve never really socialized with Tom.