Blue Rodeo member Jim Cuddy makes two tour stops in Saskatchewan

Cuddy: Well, it sounds bad when you say it like that, because it sounds like that’s all I ever do. But I am travelling with my son Devin Cuddy, so that makes it a little bit more family. But this one is a little odd, because Blue Rodeo had a very intense touring year and a very strong summer.  I can only use the time when Blue Rodeo is kind of resting. My personal tour butted right up against Blue Rodeo so, yes, this year it’s been a lot on the road.

How is it different touring when you’re on your own, versus touring with the band?

Cuddy: Blue Rodeo is a much bigger institution. We play bigger places, there’s a lot more people, there’s a lot more production, there’s more crew. I’m a smaller unit. I have two members from Blue Rodeo — Colin Cripps and Bazil Donovan — but we’re just a little bit more wash and wear. But people are pretty excited. I play a lot from my six records and then we do a few Blue Rodeo tunes, but we do them quite differently because we have a violinist Anne Lindsay, so the songs sound different. Hopefully by now, audiences know what to expect.

Cuddy: It always reminds me, historically, when we started, all the universities had full time programmers. They were students that were either in fifth year or they were doing an extra year just programming. All the Canadian bands played all the universities across the country. Played Orientation Week. We played carnivals, Winter Carnival. It was an incredible time for Canadian youth to get to know a lot of Canadian bands. I think that’s enduring, because it’s a nice thing to be reminded of your university days going to bars and raising hell. So no, I don’t get tired of it. I mean, I think that a lot of the times when we’re looking out at you at our concerts, we’re looking at the sons and daughters of those people. So how can I complain about that? It’s an amazing occurrence.
 
Did you have any idea how good Blue Rodeo was going to be back in 1984 when you were forming in those early days?

Cuddy: I thought that we were a good band but I didn’t understand the dimensions that that we would ultimately operate in. From the very first time we started to perform with Cleave Anderson on drums and Bob Wiseman on on keyboards, and myself and Bazil and Greg, we thought we were good. Greg and I had been in a lot of bands up to that point, and they were not good. It just gelled so well. We were just such a good bar band — everybody danced and we knew how to fill a night. So I think we knew that we were good on some level, but the opportunities that have come our way could not possibly have been anticipated.

Cuddy: I think that what we did early on was established very high standards for ourselves. I mean, we’ve done thousands of concerts. If we do a concert and somebody in the band feels like somebody’s head wasn’t into it, you’re going to hear about it in the dressing room. So there’s a very high standard that is really enforced in our band, and that goes for my band too. And so I think that those two things combined, we don’t want to ever let down our audience.

Speaking of records that mean something, let’s talk about your new album, All the World Fades Away. What inspired this album?

Cuddy: This record was sort of a pandemic baby that I started writing at the beginning of the pandemic, just because I had time. I knew I wanted to do a soul record, but I wasn’t sure where that would fit. One month led to six months then a year. I started recording it. As I’m sitting writing, because I have so much time, I’m formulating stories that are pretty much like memoirs. They’re like little pieces, little chapters of my memoir. They’re little stories from the background or from things that have happened. And this time I have all the time in the world to sculpt these things. And then it becomes apparent to me what I’m doing. A lot of it was because there was so much time, I mean, virtually two years of not performing, and that was actually good time for me.

Cuddy: It’s great. Sam Polley is also our son, and he has his own band and touring as well. But to tour with Devin Cuddy, this time with his new record Dear Jane, which is just a fantastic record, I have watched them turn into real pros. Watching Devin’s band perform is just so lovely. They’ve come so far in such a such a relatively short period of time. They know the rigors of the road and they’re always willing and never too tired and they never do too much dumb young stuff.

Do your kids like your music? Do they like the old, the the Blue Rodeo stuff from the late ’80s, early ’90s?

Cuddy: They were pretty young in the ’80s, Sam wasn’t born until 1992. But there was one record, Palace of Gold, and when we’d take holidays in the summer, they would sing all the songs. Now, they’ve been fixated on Barney Bentall. I always say, ‘He’s your West Coast daddy.’

Cuddy: Jackson Brown was very important to me when I was sort of looking for a style, because that sort of hit me in university, and I’ve been big Beatles fan and a lot of stuff, and I always loved acoustic guitar, but I never really found anybody in that milieu that I thought, ‘Yeah, I want to be like that.’ When I heard Jackson Browne I thought ‘I have that characteristic in my voice. I want to be like that’. So I met him years ago, and I went with a friend who was also a big Jackson Browne fan, and we were both with our wives, and when we went backstage, I couldn’t say anything. And my friend said, ‘Oh, Jim’s in a band. He’s in Blue Rodeo.’ And Jackson knew us because we had been booked by his friend in Santa Barbara. And he started talking. Then I was able to talk. I said to my friend Mike, later, ‘I don’t know if I could have gotten out of word if you hadn’t said something.’ So yes, I can be starstruck like anybody.

When you think of Saskatchewan, what comes to mind?

Cuddy: I think of 30 below and bright blue skies. And calling my wife and saying, ‘I know it’s 30 below, but it’s different. It’s so sunny, it’s beautiful.’ So I think of those two things. There’s lots of great memories.