Like father, unlike son
Devin Cuddy forges his own path away from dad Jim and Blue Rodeo
Growing up in the shadow of Blue Rodeo, you can’t blame Devin Cuddy for veering away from mid-tempo country rock. But instead of turning up the volume and rocking out, his method of teenage rebellion involved jazz. A serious study of jazz, in fact, at York University.
“It was as far as I could be from his musical world,” says Cuddy, referring to his father, Jim, singer-songwriter and co-founder of the beloved Canadian roots-rockers.
“I never shaved my head or anything like that.”
In truth, it sounds like there wasn’t much to rebel against. Devin, who was born when Blue Rodeo recorded Outskirts, and his two younger siblings had a childhood filled with music. They went to concerts and festivals, and had access to their father’s vast collection of CDs. Piano lessons were mandatory.
“It seemed very normal to me, my life,” says Devin, 26. “I don’t really have any complaints. It was great. We got to go to cool shows and meet great people and be around music all the time. That was something that helped me develop an interest in and love for music.”
It was among his father’s CDs that Devin discovered two of his biggest influences: Louis Armstrong and Randy Newman. Armstrong led him to the music of New Orleans, then Newman became one of the artists who inspired Cuddy to write songs like My Son’s a Queer, a humorous view of the tension between a traditional dad and flamboyant son.
Devin started writing songs while in university, performing solo to work out the arrangements. The jazz elements dwindled as he worked on them, eventually turning them into a rootsy hybrid of New Orleans blues and country.
“I value the education I got in terms of being a player and learning the theory,” Devin says of his formal music education. “But I’ve left the strict teachings behind. Although I love jazz, it’s a hard genre to play and keep regular gigs going. The New Orleans-country side came out as I wrote more songs.”
His next step was to assemble a band, take on a weekly residency gig and further develop the songs’ arrangements. They went into the studio last year, and came out with the excellent Volume One, an old-timey collection of original tunes, infused with piano-driven blues and sung in Devin’s husky voice. It was released on the new indie label Cameron House Records, run out of Toronto’s legendary Queen Street watering hole (where Devin got most of his performing experience).
Now Devin is keen to hit the road with his band. After a swing through the east coast of Canada, they’re heading west on their first headlining club tour. For Devin, it’s an important building block in the career of a Canadian musician.
“Travelling the country is something I’d really like to do,” he says. “Playing all those small places that my dad and that band went to in their career, which was a very big part of them building such a wide Canadian audience. They do a lot of tours to places where they don’t get a lot of bands. To me, it’s a very satisfying feeling to go to these places.”