Latest news with #Keelor
Montreal Gazette
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Montreal Gazette
Blue Rodeo's Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor have a soft spot for Montreal
Music Blue Rodeo is one of the most famous bands to come out of Toronto, but the country-flavoured rock outfit's two frontmen, Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor, both have strong connections to Montreal. They spoke about those ties to our city in a recent Zoom conversation from their respective homes in the Toronto area. Blue Rodeo will headline a free outdoor show on the main TD Stage at the Place des Festivals, part of the Montreal Jazz Festival, Friday at 9:30 p.m. and the much-loved band — whose hits include Try, Diamond Mine, Lost Together, Hasn't Hit Me Yet and many others — will also be returning to play at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier in Place des Arts on Jan. 17 next year, on their 40 th anniversary tour. Keelor, who was born in Inverness, N.S., moved from Toronto to Montreal in 1963 when his dad was transferred here. The family moved to the Town of Mount Royal and 'it was like a paradise for a 10-year-old,' Keelor said. 'TMR was very youth-oriented, very sports-oriented. There were lots of activities for kids and I was a little goalie and they had a great intercity hockey team, the TMR Eagles. It was completely enchanting before I even knew what enchantment even meant.' His parents moved back to Toronto in 1971 and Keelor stayed a year longer in Montreal to play hockey, moving back in with his parents in 1972. 'I went to North Toronto, which is where I met my buddy Jim,' Keelor said. Cuddy was born in Toronto but his dad almost immediately moved the family to the U.S., where they lived in different cities, following his dad's career path as a business consultant. They moved to Montreal West in '63, the same year Keelor arrived in TMR, and his mom vowed to never move again. 'She'd probably moved 12 times at that point so she said she'd never move again,' Cuddy said. 'We loved Montreal West. I liked it, but it was very strict. The school we went to was Protestant but it was very parochial. They had a lot of rules. Then the summer of '67 came and I was a big Toronto Maple Leafs fan. I'd been born in Toronto but never lived there so I had this mystique about Toronto. And that was the last year that Toronto won the Stanley Cup, beating Montreal. Then Expo started. We all had passes. It was the new métro. I was 11 and completely independent. I had a paper route. I'd come and go to Expo all summer long. Then by the middle of the summer, my dad said we're moving to Toronto. For a month, my mom said no. I just thought this was the greatest time of my life. It was Expo, the Leafs had just won the Cup, and I'm actually moving to this city that I cherish. My mom declared that was her last move and it was her last move.' Keelor, by the way, is a Habs fan, and, in our interview, Cuddy, a self-described 'long-suffering Leafs fan,' mock scolded Keelor for being a Canadiens supporter. 'Greg is actually a turncoat,' Cuddy said. 'In the early '70s, Greg saw this glorious team and decided to take off his Maple Leafs jersey and put on his Habs jersey forever.' Blue Rodeo always had a faithful fan base here, right from the moment their debut album Outskirts came out in 1987. 'Montreal was like a new girlfriend, a very attractive girlfriend,' Keelor said. 'It was always an exciting place to play because the audience was so responsive, was so into it. It just made us so excited to play. In those days, we never felt better than we were playing in Montreal. We did a series of shows at the Spectrum and those might've been the best Blue Rodeo shows that we ever did. I remember on our first tour we opened for k.d. lang at the Spectrum and it just seemed like such an incredible place to play.' Cuddy seconded that emotion. 'I said recently when I was playing in Dorval, with a trio, outside in the pouring rain, to a big enthusiastic crowd, that we don't usually book a night after a Montreal show. There's two places we don't do that. We don't do that in St. John's, not just for the crowd but obviously for logistics, we're just not going to make it. But (we do that) for Montreal because whatever the next city is, it will suffer (in comparison). There's just no point in doing it. You can play a very good concert but it just won't be the same. There's a level of sophistication to the musical audiences in Montreal ... and we noticed this very early on. We were embraced by Montreal audiences and they go where you go.' Keelor also fondly recalls the many shows at Bourbon Street North in Ste-Adèle. Astonishingly enough, Blue Rodeo has been together for four decades, a history kick-started in 1987 by the terrific soul ballad Try sung with so much emotion by Cuddy. 'There's part of me that instinctually just keeps on motoring along and tries not to think too much about that sort of stuff because I'm still involved in what I do,' Keelor said. 'But upon reflection you see that just even making it as a band is a miracle. Like how does that happen? Why are you cosmically picked to write these songs that make you a popular band ... and somehow these songs become somewhat iconic in the Canadian songbook and they're sung around campfires and living rooms and at weddings and funerals. And you realize what an incredible gift that is to your life.'
Ottawa Citizen
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Ottawa Citizen
Blue Rodeo's Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor have a soft spot for Montreal
Blue Rodeo is one of the most famous bands to come out of Toronto, but the country-flavoured rock outfit's two frontmen, Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor, both have strong connections to Montreal. Article content They spoke about those ties to our city in a recent Zoom conversation from their respective homes in the Toronto area. Blue Rodeo will headline a free outdoor show on the main TD Stage at the Place des Festivals, part of the Montreal Jazz Festival, Friday at 9:30 p.m. and the much-loved band — whose hits include Try, Diamond Mine, Lost Together, Hasn't Hit Me Yet and many others — will also be returning to play at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier in Place des Arts on Jan. 17 next year, on their 40 th anniversary tour. Article content Article content Keelor, who was born in Inverness, N.S., moved from Toronto to Montreal in 1963 when his dad was transferred here. The family moved to the Town of Mount Royal and 'it was like a paradise for a 10-year-old,' Keelor said. 'TMR was very youth-oriented, very sports-oriented. There were lots of activities for kids and I was a little goalie and they had a great intercity hockey team, the TMR Eagles. It was completely enchanting before I even knew what enchantment even meant.' Article content Article content Article content His parents moved back to Toronto in 1971 and Keelor stayed a year longer in Montreal to play hockey, moving back in with his parents in 1972. Article content 'I went to North Toronto, which is where I met my buddy Jim,' Keelor said. Article content Cuddy was born in Toronto but his dad almost immediately moved the family to the U.S., where they lived in different cities, following his dad's career path as a business consultant. They moved to Montreal West in '63, the same year Keelor arrived in TMR, and his mom vowed to never move again. Article content 'She'd probably moved 12 times at that point so she said she'd never move again,' Cuddy said. 'We loved Montreal West. I liked it, but it was very strict. The school we went to was Protestant but it was very parochial. They had a lot of rules. Then the summer of '67 came and I was a big Toronto Maple Leafs fan. I'd been born in Toronto but never lived there so I had this mystique about Toronto. And that was the last year that Toronto won the Stanley Cup, beating Montreal. Then Expo started. We all had passes. It was the new métro. I was 11 and completely independent. I had a paper route. I'd come and go to Expo all summer long. Then by the middle of the summer, my dad said we're moving to Toronto. For a month, my mom said no. I just thought this was the greatest time of my life. It was Expo, the Leafs had just won the Cup, and I'm actually moving to this city that I cherish. My mom declared that was her last move and it was her last move.'
CBC
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
40 years of Blue Rodeo: Keelor and Cuddy's friendship is at the heart of the band's success
Blue Rodeo is one of Canada's most beloved bands. At the heart of the group is a songwriting team dubbed the Lennon and McCartney of Canada — lifelong friends Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor. The documentary Blue Rodeo: Lost Together offers a rare peek into the formative days of their friendship. "Our first actual meeting was a bit of a confrontation," Keelor said in the film. "We met on a football field where I was a defensive end and he was a quarterback. [Jim] was throwing the ball, and I was on his blind side. And just as he was about to let go, I creamed him." However, the two were not fated to remain rivals. In the aftermath of a friend's death, Cuddy revealed his previously hidden musical talent, and Keelor began to see him in a new light. "A friend of ours died in a car accident," Keelor said. "At that age — 16, 17 — you had a total loss of how to react and how to be with each other. "We were sitting in Jim's mother's house, and there was a beautiful parlour piano in there. And Jim sat down at the piano.… He wrote a song for [our friend] David Soper. And we're all just, like, dumbfounded. We're all crying. I had never heard Jim sing before." Cuddy remembered that day. "I kept all my musical stuff very private because it was very embarrassing at that age," he said in an interview. "I remember the scene and I don't know why I was nervy enough to play it there." Inspired in part by Cuddy, Keelor would later pick up the guitar. Soon, music would flow through both of them. Though Cuddy and Keelor were a study in contrast, they became friends. Cuddy was disciplined — "a provider," Keelor said. Keelor had a "maverick spirit," said Cuddy. After high school, the two stayed connected. Cuddy was buoyed by Keelor taking music as seriously as he did. "I never thought in the early days that Greg was doing this half-heartedly," Cuddy said. "I always thought that he was fully committed, as was I." When the time was right, they started a band. "When I finished university in the spring of '78, you very kindly came to pick me up," Cuddy told Keelor in the documentary. "And we're driving back, and I was saying to you that I was going to devote a year to music. And you said, 'Why don't we get a band?' And I said 'Yes.' "And we've honestly had a band together ever since that moment." That band took on a variety of guises before it became Blue Rodeo. Blue Rodeo formed in 1984 and ever since, they've been known for their indefatigable work ethic and goodwill. Seminal, stunning records like Outskirts, Five Days in July and The Things We Left Behind would embed them in the nation's fabric. Through it all, Cuddy and Keelor's friendship has remained the foundation of the band. "The relationship between Jim and I is a funny one, of course, and a beautiful one," Keelor said. "It's an uncanny sort of friendship in this sort of storybook. Our social security numbers are eight digits apart, so we sort of have this connection." "We've committed to each other and trust that commitment to each other," Cuddy said. "And obviously it's worked out, but we've also had this crazy shared experience that now we look at each other and think, 'You can't describe this to anybody' — the things that have happened to us, the things we've done, the way we've been treated, good and bad. And so there's a huge love and fondness in that, in our shared lives."
