REID RETURNS
Reid’s music reflects a genuine love of Canada
Scottish-born artist loves Canada
I think music, sometimes, we love to put it in boxes and, this is this, and this is that. This song isn’t about that; this song is about what I’m feeling right now. Love, I don’t think it sees colours or borders, or at least it shouldn’t. Johnny Reid
It is, Johnny Reid thinks, a quintessentially Canadian song.
Even if it’s not about beer or moose or apologies or hockey or any of the things that we define ourselves by in shorthand and others return in kind. Nor is it, musically, what many would consider a particularly Canuck-sounding song, with the prairie rock feel, big city sonics or even those blue-eyed country elements Reid has built his reputation on over the past two decades.
It’s the song What I’m Feelin’ Right Now from the Scottish-born artist’s latest release, What Love Is All About. And it’s a reggae tune with rap on it. Which makes it very Canadian. Just ask one. Say, Reid himself, who now qualifies after taking his citizenship oath this past Canada Day.
“The guy asked me, he said, ‘What is it about Canada that you cherish?’” said Reid, who will be in Regina for three shows at the Conexus Arts Centre beginning Feb. 16. “And I told him straight, ‘It’s the only place that I’ve ever spent that genuinely celebrates differences.’ And that song is a reflection of that.”
It is. And it’s a full embracing of those differences, with the positivity bouncing above the reggae beats, along with Reid’s smooth, soulful singing and an energetic interjection by Toronto rapper Kardinal Offishall.
Again, it’s an odd pairing, but one that makes sense in the context of the song, in the context of the album, in the context of Reid’s career, and, yes, in the context of the entire Canadian identity. Reid acknowledges how incongruous it may sound on paper, especially to the fans of either established artist, but says when he approached his hip-hop counterpart he was received with the kind of openness that he likes to think is representative of his adopted land.
“I phoned Kardy up and said, ‘Hey, man, listen, I’m going to send you this song, let me know what you think. Could you write a wee rap for the middle? Because I think it would be amazing, a wee white guy and a big black guy (and), we could represent the song,’ ” Reid said with a laugh. “I think music, sometimes, we love to just put it in boxes and, this is this, and this is that. This song isn’t about that; this song is about what I’m feeling right now. Love, I don’t think it sees colours or borders or at least it shouldn’t,” added Reid, who has been a frequent visitor to Regina, performing everywhere from The Pump to Casino Regina to the Brandt Centre and to the Craven Country Jamboree.
The Juno Award-winning artist had no qualms about recording it, no reservations that his audience would think he’d strayed too far from what they’ve come to expect over his previous nine albums, seven of which went platinum before his latest made it an even eight soon after its November release. In fact, when pressed to consider if there’s a danger of going too far, Reid pauses as if he’d never thought about it.
“I think maybe there is, maybe there is the chance of that. I’ve always said that I can only make the best record at any given time in my life based on circumstance, what’s happening during that time in my life,” he said.
“And I feel that this is the best record that I could make at this juncture in my life.”
Before recording What Love Is All About, Reid admits that he was in the mood to take a step back from the music business, which he did for a good solid year after the release and tour for 2012’s Fire It Up and the recording of his 2013 holiday album A Christmas Gift to You.
He describes that period as one of “self-reflection (to), take a look at the things that I truly, truly cherish in my life and stop chasing, slow down a wee bit, take some time.”
He continues. “I feel like I was on output, output, output, output. You need to take a wee bit of time for input. You have to take a wee bit of time and fill yourself back up so that you can sit down with a pen and a piece of paper and take whatever that is you’re feeling and that’s what you share with people.”
The first song he did share was what would become the title cut, which Reid calls the “fulcrum of the whole record.” Reid played it for celebrated producer Bob Ezrin while they were recording that last Christmas record, and Ezrin, suitably floored by it, encouraged the singer to give it a studio treatment.
“That was it,” Reid says. “And then he said, ‘Well, I’d love to do another record with you.’ And I said, ‘If you had that time that would be brilliant.’”
Ezrin was working on other projects at the time, including records by Phish and Hollywood Vampires, so Reid took that time to head off on some writing trips to Berlin, London and Los Angeles — opportunities that had arisen from the attention that had come his way after Joe Cocker recorded his song Fire It Up.
“And at the end of the trip, I realized I’d written my record.”