The world may have stopped, but the music didn’t
Blue Rodeo’s Greg Keelor hunkered down with musicians and has an album to show for it
At least someone has found some comfort with this pandemic.
Greg Keelor, co-founder of Blue Rodeo and solo artist in his own right, has endured aural issues for years. So, as much as he dreaded the live music shutdown mandated by COVID-19, it’s been a welcome respite for his hearing.
“The COVID’s been good to my head because I do have trouble with my ears,” says Keelor, who recently released his seventh album, “Share the Love,” and will share the stage with Blue Rodeo for their streaming show “Live, Online and Lost Together” from the Danforth Music Hall on June 11, provincial guidelines permitting.
“It’s not just the tinnitus; the tinnitus is fine. I’m used to it now. I’d miss it if it went away. But my ears got super sensitive to volume and certain frequencies — everything was hard on my head. It gave me migraines and it sort of affected the way I saw myself in the world: it was making me a little crazy at times,” Keelor says.
“So I’ve had a nice chunk of time where my ears have been able to relax and recoup, and they’re better than they’ve been in a long time.”
While he took a break from touring, Keelor hasn’t stopped playing, assembling Sheepdogs guitar phenom Jimmy Bowskill, Blue Rodeo drummer Glenn Milchem, Melissa Payne on organ, violin and vocals; guitarists James McKenty and Kyler Tapscott, and Ian McKeown on bass for impromptu jams on the Kawartha farm he’s owned for the better part of three decades.
“I have a nice sort of bubble out here with some very conscientious, fantastic musicians,” says Keelor, 66.
“When we do go out, that will be an amazing time because everyone will be doing it with a different headspace. We’re in a new landscape; we’re sort of in a new world.”
GREG KEELOR
“Usually everybody’s on the road, but these guys and woman have been around. We sit around and sing old country and old bluegrass. That went really well when we went to record this record because we’re a pretty tight unit and it made for great recording.”
Actually, a great second recording: Keelor says the band finished the nine songs that comprise “Share the Love” before the pandemic and were discussing when to release the project with Steve Kane, president of Warner Music Canada, when the world stopped.
Encouraged by other artists who continued to release albums in spite of the pandemic, Keelor decided he would prepare some social media visuals to accompany his music and booked the Community Hall at Gores Landing to perform the album.
That’s when he made an unexpected discovery: “When we listened back to the tracks, we liked it better than the album,” he says. Which is why he shelved the studio version of “Share the Love” and released the live take instead.
“It’s a very nice treat to record live off the floor: there’s something very exciting about the connection of a group of musicians and a room when they’re playing and their hearts are into it,” he says.
“It’s something that I could feel in this recording and I think most people will feel and enjoy that connection.”
As compared to the work he does with Blue Rodeo, Keelor songs and albums are a little more rustic and roots-oriented with a touch of mysticism and “Share the Love” is no exception, with some tunes rooted in anguish and others in celebration.
For example, the songs “Goodbye Baby” and “What Am I Gonna Do” stem from the dissolution of two romances — one his, one a friend’s — while other songs focus on the death of a long-time friend from brain cancer.
“I’m definitely an expert on my heartbreak,” Keelor says with a chuckle. “This record has both sides; it’s got the heartbreak, but it also has songs of infatuation and even seduction.
“A very dear friend of mine and a great mentor, and my bookkeeper and accountant as well, she died of brain cancer and, at the very same time, my girlfriend of five years, we broke up.
“So I was in a dismal spot. But that’s not an unfamiliar landscape for me. It’s a landscape that I’ve used many times to write songs and I’ve sort of realized that when I was writing the songs for ‘Share the Love,’ that I should take a deeper look at this and see what’s causing this cycle of relationships that don’t work out.”
Keelor says he found some answers that traced back to his adoption and his pre-Greg identity as Francis McIntyre.
“There’s a line in one of the songs that says, ‘I was born in shame/I’ll wear that curse to my grave.’ That was just a realization (of ) the moment I was conceived. My mother was a 17year-old Cape Breton girl who got pregnant and left Cape Breton without telling her family why she was leaving. She just went to Toronto and Catholic Children’s Aid (Society) to have me. So in that womb, I was born in a sea of melancholy and a sea of shame and depression.
“Metaphorically, it sort of made sense to me, that there always has been a little bit of melancholic detachment in my being.”
Keelor, who’s recorded a dozen songs for the upcoming Blue Rodeo record expected in 2022, says the germ for “Share the Love” began with guitarist Bowskill.
“Jim started playing with Blue Rodeo and we just hit it off,” says Keelor. “He’s a neighbour — I’m here in Kendal and he’s down in Port Hope — and we just love sitting together and playing guitars and singing; we love what our voices do when they hit.”
They started recording some of Keelor’s original songs and found they were connected: “it was pretty obvious that this group of songs were meant to be together to tell a story.”
One of the things that has given Keelor peace of mind over the past 35 years is his farm in the Kawarthas, an hour-plus country retreat from the hustle and bustle of Toronto.
“To move out here and reignite my infatuation with the forests and nature has been lifesaving and such a spark to my creativity. I just love it out here.
“Now I find the city so surreal — it’s so intense and it’s changed so much since I’ve moved out — the density of it, the amount of foot, bicycle and car traffic … if you live there every day, you grow used to it and accustomed to it, it doesn’t seem like anything. But for me, because I don’t really go out to the city that much anymore, it’s like playing a pinball game when I do, it’s so hyper.”
And as much as he’s enjoyed the reprieve with his hearing, Keelor looks forward to touring again as soon as it’s safe to do so.
“The road’s a funny thing,” he says. “It’s a routine and that routine is a big part of my life. Whether it’s just sleeping on the bus, waking up and having breakfast with the crew, or having a nap, doing a sound check, dinner, show, hotel, down the road to the next show, there are certain pleasant disciplines and just a nice thing to be in that routine.
“When we do go out, that will be an amazing time because everyone will be doing it with a different headspace. We’re in a new landscape; we’re sort of in a new world. Everyone is a little tentative about sharing public spaces and sharing the air that we breathe, so it’s going to be an interesting time.”