The ever-popular rock band Blue Rodeo, formed by Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor in Toronto, has been at the forefront of the Canadian music scene since 1985. The band has a well-deserved dedicated following, proven by their unequalled five-time selection as the JUNO Awards’ Group of the Year and their numerous gold and platinum-selling albums.
Cuddy (born in 1955) and Keelor (born in 1954) famously met playing high-school football in Toronto, when Keelor unexpectedly tackled Cuddy flat to the turf. This ignominious introduction unexpectedly led to a fruitful songwriting partnership within a few years. (Fittingly, Blue Rodeo went on to play the prestigious Grey Cup half-time show in 2009).
While both Keelor and Cuddy were heavily influenced by The Beatles and Gordon Lightfoot, Keelor also dove into psychedelic rock groups like Country Joe and the Fish, while Cuddy spent time listening to songwriters like Jackson Browne. After the two formed their “amphetamine pop band” the HiFi’s, they decamped for New York City’s music scene in 1981 in search of a new sound and a new adventure.
After three years of honing their craft, Cuddy and Keelor returned to Toronto and discovered a thriving club scene featuring successful acts like Handsome Ned, Cowboy Junkies, Jeff Healey and k.d. lang.
Blue Rodeo was formed after recruiting members Cleave Anderson, drummer and friend from their earlier New Wave days, self-taught pianist Bobby Wiseman, and bassist Bazil Donovan, who was found through a classified ad. The new band played wherever a gig was available and soon, their live reputation led to sold-out performances at Toronto venues like The Horseshoe Tavern and The Big Bop. They expanded to Montréal’s Spectrum, toured across Canada with lang, and appeared across Europe and the United States. From the start, the duo wrote their own songs, featuring a distinctive blend of Canadiana roots-country-rock with Beatle-esque harmonies and rock-and-roll foundations. As Cuddy told the CBC’s Tom Power, “We were very much roots.”
In 1987, under a Warner Music Canada deal, Blue Rodeo released their first album, the multi-platinum “Outskirts,” an immediate critical success. In its review of the album, Rolling Stone Magazine observed, “The best American band may very well be Canadian.”
The much-loved ballad Try – still a radio and fan fave – rapidly swept the music industry, reaching RPM’s No. 1 country, No. 3 adult contemporary and top 10 on the top singles chart. Try set in motion a three-decade-long career of headlining every club, theatre and arena in Canada.
As Cuddy told journalist Bob Mersereau, “…Try got such a strong reaction…we realized we had something.”
Awards quickly began piling up for Blue Rodeo. The Canadian Country Music Association Rising Star award (1988) and Big Country awards for Outstanding New Artists and New Group set the band and their unique country-tinged rock firmly on the path to national and international success. In 1989, Blue Rodeo was awarded Group of the Year and Single of the Year (“Try”) at the JUNO Awards. The 1990 heartfelt single Til I Am Myself Again ruled as RPM’s No. 1 Country, No. 2 Adult Contemporary and No. 3 Pop.
Audiences and radio stations embraced Blue Rodeo as a welcome breath of fresh air from the glam-rock acts that dominated the period.
Their next studio albums included such popular recordings as “Diamond Mine,” “Lost Together” (RPM’s No. 3 Pop), the sextuple platinum “Five Days in July,” “Nowhere to Here” (No. 2 in Canada), and “Palace of Gold.” In 2007, “Small Miracles” won JUNO Awards for Group of the Year and Best Adult Alternative Album, while 2009’s album “All the Things That Were Left Behind” was nominated for a Polaris Music Prize.
Keelor and Cuddy have forged a songwriting partnership with enviable longevity. Keelor reflected to the CBC’s Tom Power, “We’ve always just been fascinated with writing songs. I think there’s something rebellious about a lot of country music, and we identified with that. There’s something very sincere about country music.”
Cuddy told the Montréal Gazette how his and Keelor’s differing styles blend to create something strong and lasting: “I’ve borrowed very liberally from all the things that I touch in my life.… with the distance of a writer. Greg so clearly wrote about himself and his own experiences.… that is a marked contrast in our songwriting.”
Both Keelor and Cuddy pursued solo careers outside of Blue Rodeo while maintaining a steadfast alliance to their celebrated band. The duo has earned SOCAN national achievements awards, a Governor-General’s Performing Arts Award, the Order of Canada, a star on the Walk of Fame and an induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
by Betty Nygaard King
