Making Music and Warming our Hearts
By Jennifer Hartley
They took the Queen Street West bar scene in Toronto by storm in the 1980s and the rest of Canada soon followed. Forty years later, the country rockers behind Blue Rodeo are still making magic, through thick and thin, led by the dynamic songwriting duo of Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor.
“I remember when our first album came out and we were beckoned by a representative from the record label who said they had only sold 5000 records and if things didn’t get better, we were going to be dropped. Greg and I actually thought 5000 was a lot back then!” laughs the warm and easy-going Jim Cuddy.
The song Try put them on the map. “You know, I figured it was a song people liked because we would get asked to play it twice in a night in the bars, but it wasn’t our first-released song. Then, when it did hit the airwaves, it soared. Night after night on The Top 7@7, Try made the list. We were offered more gigs and we just did what we loved: playing music. And the next morning I would go back to work. It was just this crazy thing. We didn’t turn into pop stars overnight.” At the time, he was making props and sets for TV commercials. “I had been making movie sets but the time commitment was too great and cut into music time, so I moved to commercials and quite enjoyed it.”
And once he heard Try in the grocery stores, “I knew we had made it,” he jokes.
After Multiple Junos, SOCAN Awards, a star on the Walk of Fame in Toronto, induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement—Canada’s highest honour in the performing arts, and many other awards, the band is still going strong.
For Jim, being inducted in the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame this year, with Greg, was particularly meaningful. Close friends since high school (they met at North Toronto Collegiate), they work very well together.
“The songwriters accolade is a great thrill and I don’t think that’s anything that Greg and I would ever have imagined. The other honours are shared with all the Blue Rodeo community, but this one is truly for something that matters a lot to Greg and me personally. I mean we’ve been songwriters longer than we’ve been in a band and it’s something we push each other to do better and so this one … this one strikes pretty deeply. I’m deeply grateful. It’s a very personal sense of accomplishment that I have from this award.”
While Jim and Greg are key members of Blue Rodeo, they also give each other space to create their own music. Jim recently released his sixth solo album, All the World Fades Away, and he has won two Junos for his solo work.
“I have to write short stories that I can draw from my own experience and my imagination; obviously they are not memoirs, but they are short stories. I go tour them, then I hear how people relate to them and then the meaning or the perspective of the song broadens a lot. I think it is great to have people add their own memories or their own experiences to our music.”
A devoted family man, he just celebrated his 40th wedding anniversary with his actor wife Rena Polley, whom he credits as being one of the biggest influences in his life, along, of course, with Greg. He and Rena have three children, two sons and a daughter, who are all now adults. Becoming a father changed Jim. “There was this new portal in my mind that opened up and remains to this day. I’m fearful for their well-being and that’s carried on true throughout their lives and they’re all in their 30s.”
Since he’s introspective, nuggets of wisdom pepper any conversation. “One of our most important lessons has been to listen to ourselves. Greg and I have always been best when we have just simply listened to ourselves. There was so much noise,” he says. “`Do this, do that,’ `do back-up for six months or you’re going to burn out,’ ‘you are performing too much.’” They learned to tune it out. “It took us a long time to get over wanting to be part of what was current in our time and just do something that we really liked, which was roots music.”
Jim grew up in a household where there was music. His mother was a talented singer from Prince Edward County and his dad was a Second World War pilot. His decision to pursue music was his own, though.
“When you look back at the way that things unfolded in my life and lives of the people around me, had anything happened more quickly or had there not been the detours of other work, I don’t think my life would’ve been the same,” he says. For instance, he had a painting company when he was younger, he and Greg had an eaves cleaning company and he even considered law school.
What makes him laugh? “Greg.” They both share a sarcastic sense of humour. “We have to be careful sometimes, as others may not appreciate our acerbic tongues.”
Apart from a sugar addiction, Jim leads a relatively disciplined life and he is passionate about giving back. MusiCounts, which provides instruments and music programs to schools, is one program that is particularly dear to his heart. He works on Indigenous causes, supports regional environment preservation initiatives, supports hospitals and he has raised millions for Team Canada athletes. For his charity work and music, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Toronto. He has also been honoured by the University of Windsor and Queen’s.
Best compliment he has ever received? “It is actually pretty recent. They were putting a gate between two houses near me and this huge guy recognized me as I wandered around. He came over to me and said, `You are great Canadian.’ It’s one thing to be known for your music and the band, but I feel like it is another stage when people feel proud that you are from their country. That’s pretty moving.”
It’s not that American companies didn’t want him and the band to relocate, though. “They wanted us to head down there, but it was never appealing to us. We had lived in New York for a while but came home. In Canada, we found a whole different level of a community.”
Not only is he a proud Canadian, he and his wife are learning to speak French. “I am working really hard at it. I consider it an obligation as a Canadian in a bilingual country to try to learn to speak the language.” In his spare time, he also plays hockey (and makes music) with his sons.
Jim and Rena are also big cyclists and love to travel. “We have a family and I look forward to watching what happens in my children’s lives. My wife and I have a lot to look forward to but we have to be conscious to slow things down, too, to just appreciate the moment. My wife and I were reflecting recently about this very fact. I think at my age, I am 69, I realize that the things I look forward to come and go very quickly and I want to be very conscious, to absorb it all and be aware when they’re happening.” Sage advice for any age.
