Cuddy keeps it simple for Countrywide Soul
When Jim Cuddy releases an album titled Countrywide Soul, you can practically hear the sound of it in your head before you tear off the cellophane or click on the Spotify play icon.
You know there’s going to be a touch of twang, with the Blue Rodeo co-founder’s familiar voice drawing on a lifetime of listening to rock, folk and R&B.
There’s also going to be a double take for fans of Cuddy’s solo work since the record’s title track was originally released on the 2006 album The Light That Guides You Home. But here it’s a new recording along with a mix of familiar, new and cover songs given a stripped-down treatment, which he and his band bring to Halifax and Glace Bay this week, with special guest Old Man Luedecke.
Countrywide Soul was recorded live off the hayloft floor at his farm outside of Toronto in three-and-ahalf days, with no overdubs after the fact. It’s the way many of Cuddy’s favourite records of the past were made, whether in Motown, Memphis or Nashville, and a method he’d wanted to try for a long time.
“We have a very nice barn, and I'd always go out there to strum by myself or play or write songs without annoying everybody else, and it's so pleasant out there,” says Cuddy. “I've been out there in all kinds of weather, extreme storms and it's all dry and beautiful.
“I wanted to do some recording out there, but I also wanted to celebrate the excellence of the musicians that I play with, not just in Blue Rodeo, but also in my own band.”
When Cuddy plays the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium on Friday and the Savoy Theatre on Sunday, he’ll be joined by two Blue Rodeo members — guitarist Colin Cripps and Nova Scotia-born bassist Bazil Donovan — longtime violinist Anne Lindsay, drummer Joel Anderson and keyboardist Steve O'Connor. They all play on Countrywide Soul, with guest musician Jimmy Bowskill, who also plays with the Sheepdogs and Blue Rodeo, and they all relished the opportunity to reinvigorate songs they’ve been playing for years as well as the record’s two new songs.
“One, Back Here Again, is kind of East Coast-fiddley, while the other, Glorious Day, is kind of psychedelic-bluesey,” says Cuddy, who enjoys having a solo career that can follow a less-defined path than Blue Rodeo, which has many influences but tends to define its own sound rather than lean too far in any one direction.
“When we’re actually up here on the farm, playing in the barn or swimming in the pond, then it makes a lot of sense, and it wouldn’t have made a lot of sense to do something else,” he says of the latest set’s more relaxed feel.
“It was nice to allow myself to redo Countrywide Soul and make it a much more countrified song. And I like it better. It’s better with a pedal steel solo, and giving in to the countrified nature of it. And All in Time being more folk-y/ rock-y, that also fit in here.”
Cuddy credit’s Donovan’s influence when it comes to dipping into the classic country catalogue for covers of Almost Persuaded and the Glen Campbell signature hit Rhinestone Cowboy.
The latter song, one of those tunes you couldn’t escape when it
became a hit in 1975, might have seemed like an odd choice. But a more recent version convinced him it would work on the album.
“I heard George Canyon do it, and it reinvigorated my interest in what a brilliant song it is,” Cuddy says of Rhinestone Cowboy. “I think it’s about three minutes long, it’s got a whole lot of story, it’s got a beautiful chord structure, and it takes quite a range to sing it.
“It’s just a brilliant song, and it’s fun to sing live because you look out at the crowd and everybody knows the words. And absolutely they don’t know why they know the song, they just do. It’s a phenomenon.”
For tickets to Jim Cuddy at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium on Friday, visit the Dal Arts Centre box office (902-494-3820 or artscentre. dal.ca). For Saturday tickets at the Savoy, visit the venue box office (902-842-1577 or tickets.savoytheatre.com).