Artist description Blue Rodeo's style has drawn comparisons to a number of pop and rock icons, including the Beatles, Buffalo Springfield, the Band, and Bob Dylan.

Music Style Heartland Rock, Americana, Alternative Country-Rock, Folk-Rock

Musical Influences The Beatles, Buffalo Springfield, the Band, and Bob Dylan

Similar Artists The Band, Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, Bob Dylan, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram Parsons, Neil Young, R.E.M., The Beatles, Tom Petty, The Grateful Dead

Artist History Formed in 1985 in Toronto, Canada. Nine albums on Discovery Records and WEA. Their debut album, 1987's Outskirts, showcased the group's harmonies and musical interplay in a classic, rootsy folk-rock style. The punchier Diamond Mine (1989) covered more lyrical ground, bringing a bit of social commentary into Blue Rodeo's tales of loss and heartbreak, but the recording site (an empty hall in Toronto) dulled the songs' impact somewhat. Producer Pete Anderson (Michelle Shocked, Dwight Yoakam) accentuated the group's vocal harmonies on the following year's Casino, which was well-received. Even higher praise was reserved for Lost Together, which synthesized the previous albums' stylistic changes into a cohesive whole. Blue Rodeo continued innovating throughout the '90s, releasing three more studio albums during the decade. The Days in Between followed in early 2000.

Group Members Jim Cuddy, Kim Deschamps, Bazil Donovan, Bob Egan, Greg Keelor, Glenn Milchem, Bob Wiseman, James Gray

Instruments Guitars, Bass, Drums, Keyboards, Piano, Steel Guitar

Albums 1987 Outskirts, 1989 Diamond Mine, 1991 Casino, 1992 Lost Together, 1994 Five Days in July, 1995 Nowhere to Here, 1997 Tremolo, 1999 Just Like a Vacation [live], 2000 The Days in Between

Press Reviews Feature stories on artists and the music they make. December 1, 2000. Blue Rodeo Self-Releasing Latest Set Stateside By Jim Bessman Toronto favorite Blue Rodeo, whose U.S. albums have previously gone through the WEA distribution pipeline, is self-releasing its current Warner Music Canada disc, "The Days In Between," stateside on its own indie label, bluerodeo.com records.The label is named after the band's huge Web site, which has been selling "The Days In Between" since Oct. 2. Starting Dec. 1, the album, which came out in Canada last year, became available to domestic retail as well.Acclaimed for its eclectic roots-rock sound, Blue Rodeo has long enjoyed major success at home and strong cult status here. Its seven previous U.S. albums have been on Atlantic, EastWest, Discovery, and Sire, which issued the group's last album, "Tremolo," in 1997.Lacking major-label distribution for its next U.S. release, and realizing that the American side of its business was increasingly going through the Internet, the band opted to go it alone and rely on the Web to get the word out to its U.S. following."Fans [in the U.S.] were finding out about our activities in Canada though the Internet and coming up to see us on their vacations, so I thought maybe we could just do it all ourselves," says Jim Cuddy, who shares Blue Rodeo's songwriting, vocals, and guitarwork with Greg Keelor. "We've had radio play [in the U.S.], but we've always been more of a 'special choice' for people who have to search us out. If people surf the Net, they're more likely to find us than on the radio."Based in Toronto, bluerodeo.com records is run by Susan DeCartier, the band's manager. Longtime Webmaster Kevin LeFlar is setting up retail accounts, and Heather Pollack is handling retail marketing. This includes a network of U.S. field reps who deal with local stores and work tour markets.Blue Rodeo is a "meat and potatoes" touring band, according to Cuddy, and has just completed the first leg of a U.S. tour supporting "The Days In Between," with the second leg to commence in January 2001. "We always try to plan a year between an album's release in Canada and the U.S., because we have an enormous touring commitment in Canada, and America's so huge that it's difficult to do both at once," says Cuddy. The band's retail efforts, he adds, will now involve such "prehistoric notions as taking a few albums in your satchel and handing them across [to dealers for them] to sell or take on consignment."Shawn Ryan, owner of the Slip Disc store in Birmingham, Ala., and a devoted Blue Rodeo follower since 1989's "Diamond Mine," applauds the direct availability of "The Days In Between" from the band."Their stuff's been increasingly spotty in getting down here from regular distributors," notes Ryan, who keeps four or five Blue Rodeo catalog titles in stock at any given time. "It's an instant sell if I play it in-store, but I have to make an effort to get it, though it's a labor of love. I used to be the music writer for The Birmingham News and fell in love with the band and kept up."Besides Cuddy and Keelor, who were just awarded the National Achievement Award for Outstanding Success in the Canadian Music Industry by Canadian performing right society SOCAN, the 15-year-old Blue Rodeo includes bassist Bazil Donovan, keyboardist James Gray, drummer Glenn Milchem, and pedal and lap steel guitarist Bob Egan."We kind of go on a cycle of very polished, focused records followed by very thorny and meandering ones that are all over the place," says Cuddy. "Tremolo," he says, was "very unpolished, but ["The Days In Between"] is polished and focused -- fairly upbeat with fairly straight-ahead songs. There's a lot more momentum than on the last couple albums -- and it's fun to play and good for audiences.""The Days In Between" was co-produced by Blue Rodeo and Trina Shoemaker, an engineer associated with Daniel Lanois who won a Grammy for her work on Sheryl Crow's "Globe Sessions." It was recorded at Kingsway Studio, Lanois' former home base in New Orleans, where Blue Rodeo recorded its second album, "Diamond Mine," in 1989.Bluerodeo.com records will follow "The Days In Between" next year with domestic availability of Cuddy's and Keelor's 1998 solo albums, respectively titled "All In Time" and "Gone." Meanwhile, the group is reaping the benefits from its extensively remodeled and heavily trafficked Web site, which not only exhaustively covers Blue Rodeo's activities and history but also exposes other artists and directs Blue Rodeo fans to their sites.Indeed, the site lives up to its stated goal of establishing an "online music community," via discussion boards, chats, polls, games, and online events. Additionally, a "New Music Network" section showcases music from the many artists who have cited Blue Rodeo as influences, and a "One Degree of Blue Rodeo" section highlights and links up with the many artists who have crossed paths with the band over the years, including Sarah McLachlan, Burton Cummings, Jann Arden, and Ron Sexsmith."That's our motivation," says Cuddy. "We've invested a lot of time and money to make the site enjoyable and keep it interesting, and we're trying more and more to get people dependent on it for information on tours and new releases."Everything's so much more effective now," Cuddy adds. "Before we were always bitching about the record company not doing this or that. Now we do it ourselves, and it's so much more satisfying. I can understand that at a major label, we're not the focus of their endeavor -- but we are now for us."

Location Toronto, Ontario - Canada

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