FEATURE ON BLUE RODEO PUBLISHED IN THE KW RECORD FOR THURSDAY, JUNE 24 IN ADVANCE OF THEIR STARDUST PICNIC PERFOMANCE AT THE GUELPH CONSERVATION AREA JUNE 27, 1999
By Nick Krewen
For The Record
Remember those three hour "Evening With Blue Rodeo" marathons that the Toronto sextet performed across Canada last year?
It seems the best of the bunch occurred at a mid-winter date at The Festival Theatre in Stratford, where nine of the 22 songs that comprise the band's new double-disc set Just Like A Vacation made the final cut.
"We had just come off Christmas holidays, and the two dates we did in Stratford turned out to be really really solid nights," said JIM CUDDY recently from his Toronto home. "They just turned out really well."
Cuddy calls Just Like A Vacation "a snapshot" of the band's current line-up, which includes co-founder, singing and songwriting foil GREG KEELOR, bassist BAZIL DONOVAN, drummer GLENN MILCHEM, keyboardist JAMES GRAY and pedal steel specialist KIM DESCHAMPS, that will headline the Stardust Picnic on Sunday.
However, he makes it clear that he's not nearly as attached to the live album as he would be a new studio recording.
"For me, it's kind of frustrating," says Cuddy, who won the Juno for Best Male Vocalist earlier this year for his debut solo album All In Time.
"It's nice to have a new record out, because then you can have a new relationship with it. You wrote and produced the record, and can explore and experience it through your own performances.
"That's not what this record is. This is something that happened two years ago. I'm happy that we got it down on tape, but we're showing a photograph around that we've seen a million times. So I don't think the band is going to be as connected to this record as hopefully the people who buy it. For us, we're definitely thinking about the next one."
Revealing that the band was about to embark to DANIEL LANOIS' Kingsway Studios in New Orleans to begin album number eight with SHERYL CROW producer TRINA SHOEMAKER, Cuddy did admit that listening to your own live recording is a valuable exercise.
"One of the things we've learned from these tapes is the better the crowd, the sloppier the playing," he says. "You get so preoccupied with the little dance you're doing with the crowd that you don't concentrate as much on playing. You stick out more as an individual.
"Yorkton, Saskatchewan, was a very reserved audience. A joke that I don't think made it to the album occurred when Greg said, `I think you people have the wrong room -- The P.T.A. meeting's down the hall.'
"They weren't really responding at all. We played so well because we were just concentrating on the music."
Cuddy says that in contrast, concerts where crowds are more excitable has an adverse effect .
"It's more ragged.," he admits. "The tempos are up and down. It's just stuff you don't want to hear over and over again on a tape. "
Just Like A Vacation also allowed Jim Cuddy to reflect on the differences between the two renditions of Blue Rodeo: the current one, and the Outskirts and Diamond Mine version that included keyboardist BOBBY WISEMAN and ex-BATTERED WIVES drummer CLEAVE ANDERSON, later replaced by MARK FRENCH.
"There are times when I mourn the loss of that band," admits Cuddy."The first time around was a very special band, no doubt about it. The way that everybody played together and our facility with the songs we wrote was remarkable.
"However, that band was also a very immature band. It was conceived to be a bar band -- to excite people -- and I don't know how long we would have gone on recording. That band could not have made Five Days In July because we didn't have the tools. We didn't have all the instrumentalists we needed.
"This band is a much bigger orchestra, and I think that's one thing that this live record shows. The dimensions of the songs `Diamond Mine', `Trust Yourself' and `After The Rain' are much greater than the songs on record. They're much broader, the dynamics are bigger, and in a way that's more satisfying."
As for the Stardust concept, Cuddy says Sunday's concert with fellow Canadian icons 54.40 and GREAT BIG SEA was modelled on the Calgary and Edmonton Folk Festivals.
"We wanted it to be a longer musical day where you could hear music in a beautiful green spot," he explains. "We're trying to make every moment a quality moment."
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PERSONNEL
Jim Cuddy -- Vocals, Guitar
Greg Keelor -- Vocals, Guitar
Bazil Donovan -- Bass
Bob Wiseman -- Keyboards (1986 - 1991)
Cleave Anderson -- Drums (1986 -89)
Mark French -- Drums (1989-91)
Glenn Milchem -- Drums (1991...)
Kim Deschamps -- Pedal & Lap Steel, Mandolin, Banjo (1993 - 1999)
James Gray -- Keyboards (1993...)
Bob Egan -- Pedal & Lap Steel, Guitar (1999...)
DISCOGRAPHY
1986 -- Outskirts -- Risque Disque/Warner
1988 -- Diamond Mine
1990 -- Casino -- WEA
1992 -- Lost Together
1993 -- Five Days In July
1997 -- Tremolo
1999 -- Just Like A Vacation
2000 -- The Days In Between
SOLO
1996 -- Greg Keelor, Gone
1998 -- Jim Cuddy, All In Time
COLLABORATIONS
1996 -- Various Artists, Pine Ridge - Songs For Leonard Peltier
CONTRIBUTIONS
1999 -- The Sadies, The Sadies (Greg Keelor, guitar)
AWARDS
1988 -- Canadian Country Music Association, Vista Rising Star
1989 -- Juno, Single Of The Year -- "Try"
1989 -- Juno, Group Of The Year
1989 -- Juno, Best Video Of The Year - "Try" (Michael Buckley, director)
1990 -- Juno, Group Of The Year
1990 -- Juno, Songwriters Of The Year (Jim Cuddy, Greg Keelor)
1991 -- Juno, Group Of The Year
1996 -- Juno, Group Of The Year
THANKS: Steve Waxman, Joanna Dine, Philip Bast
©1999 Nick Krewen, Octopus Media Ink