BLUE RODEO RIDES AGAIN
A CANADIAN TOUR from Halifax to Vancouver and all points in between for a new album might seem like business as usual for Blue Rodeo, but Many A Mile, the 16th studio release from the altcountry legends, almost didn’t happen.
Singer-songwriters Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor were both deflated after 2016’s 1000 Arms album and tour, but “the last record exacted a toll on Greg,” Cuddy says. “He puts everything into his music and recording and when it’s over, he often has a dip. That one was pretty extreme.”
But then COVID-19 hit, and the longtime collaborators had a chance to recharge during lockdown. They wrote and recorded the songs separately, and the rest of the band hoofed it back and forth between Cuddy, at a studio in Toronto, and Keelor, in Cobourg,
Ont., to lay down their parts. The richly layered Many A Mile captures a band so accomplished that not even physical distance can diminish their cohesion.
“The pandemic gave me all the time in the world to sit with the songs,” Keelor says. “There’s no question this record would not have happened without it.” Call it the upside to an otherwise ghastly global event.