2010-06-16 18:35:54

PETER BLACKSTOCK: Still Feeling Blue, From The Rodeo To The Shadows

Filed under: Blue Shadows, Featured, Music, Peter Blackstock
Posted by: John

by PETER BLACKSTOCK

You may recall I wrote last week about Blue Rodeo, the great Toronto roots-rock band that often plays to modest club crowds in the United States but enjoys nationwide stardom in Canada. Their relative anonymity in the U.S. aside, Blue Rodeo’s story is mostly a happy one, a tale of dreams pursued and fulfilled, and it continues to unfold even today.

Would that this were the case for another, similarly named fellow Canadian roots act, the Blue Shadows. Whereas there’s a fair chance you’ve at least heard of Blue Rodeo (and maybe are a big fan, if last week’s comments were any indication!), it’s almost a certainty that you never heard of the Blue Shadows if you live in the U.S., and you might not even know of them if you’re from Canada. Though they issued two albums in the mid-’90s, neither of them ever got released in the States. The best of the two, 1993’s On The Floor Of Heaven, finally is seeing the light of day again (including a Stateside release this time) as a reissue on Bumstead Records this week. The reissue includes a second disc of outtakes from the album’s sessions.

The Blue Shadows weren’t quite just another of Canada’s pleasant and plentiful roots-rock acts. They had an ace in the hole in Billy Cowsill, a transplanted Rhode Islander who’d hit it big as a teen in the late 1960s with the family band the Cowsills (the real-life basis for TV’s fictional Partridge Family). Cowsill was an obvious personality, a real musical talent with a rare keening vocal twang that made him equally adept at taking the lead melody or handling the high harmony. He was also a troubled soul, with substance abuse problems that ultimately broke the band up before its time and contributed to his death in 2006 at age 58 (though he’d cleaned up his act in his later years).

Really, though, it was like the Blue Shadows had TWO aces in the hole. Cowsill may have had a larger-than-life aspect to his character, but his partner in singing and songwriting, Winnipeg native Jeffrey Hatcher, was a supremely talented tunesmith in his own right (with several previous projects to his credit before the Blue Shadows made their ’90s run). And there was something magical about the way Hatcher and Cowsill’s voices blended. The closest comparison is to the Everly Brothers, though their partnership at times seemed to have a Lennon/McCartney feel to it as well.

That I became aware of them was just a stroke of dumb luck. I was visiting a friend in Calgary (the band’s home base) in the summer of ‘93 and we stopped in at a local bar, where it just so happened that the Blue Shadows were performing. I knew nothing about them at the time, but it took only a couple of songs for me to realize they were something really special. I bought On The Floor Of Heaven (which had just come out) on the spot, reviewed it for a Seattle biweekly a few days later, and watched as the Shadows went….nowhere.

Cowsill’s volatility probably doomed their chances, really; so much about a band’s prospects for success depends not just on having worthy art, but also on striking the right balance of personal chemistry and responsibility. And yet I’ve continued to go back to these guys’ music over the years. I can’t seem to leave them behind, and so it’s gratifying to see On The Floor Of Heaven finally resurface. Just to give you a little bit of a sense of their music, here’s a video for the song “Deliver Me” that was shot back in the band’s heyday:

Peter Blackstock was co-founder and co-editor of No Depression magazine from 1995-2008, worked many years as a copy editor for daily newspapers in Seattle and Austin, and served as archivist for the SXSW music festival from 1989-1997. He blogs occasionally at That Magnificent Ghost.

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2010-06-09 06:02:09

PETER BLACKSTOCK: Blue Rodeo, South of Home

Filed under: Blue Rodeo, Featured, Music, Peter Blackstock, Uncategorized
Posted by: John

by PETER BLACKSTOCK

First, a confession: Deep down, there’s something about me that I’ve probably known for quite some time, something that has become increasingly impossible to deny as the years have passed. There’s really no sense in fighting it anymore.

I am a closet Canadian.

Raised in Texas, granted. (Although born, fittingly enough, in Rochester, New York, just across Lake Ontario from Toronto.) The United States is home, always has been; in fact, I’ve been to all 50 states, and have lived in five of them. I love our nation’s ideals, our landscape, our horizons, our heritage, our hope.

But, man, I gotta say, every time I’ve been to Canada, I just marvel at what a good thing they have going up there. I’m sure I’m romanticizing to some extent — Canada undoubtedly has its troubles and its downsides, like any country on Earth — but there is a peacefulness in the north country, and the wide-open spaces are plentiful, and the citizens are predominantly polite, and they value the arts, and their health, and they aren’t so vastly beholden to material greed over human welfare. There is much to love about our neighbor land.

Damn good music, too. You know about Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell, and Leonard Cohen, and Cowboy Junkies, and The Band. (And we’ll forgive them for Celine Dion.) You probably don’t know about Stan Rogers, and Huevos Rancheros, and the Skydiggers, and Geoff Berner, and the Lost Dakotas. A shame, that, but no one gets to hear everybody (I’m sure I’ve missed a lot, too).

Chances are pretty fair that you know at least something about Blue Rodeo. The phrase which has forever been quoted about them, ever since it appeared in a Rolling Stone review more than two decades ago, is: “The best new American band may very well be Canadian.” That was back when they WERE new, in the late ’80s; nowadays, they’ve got more than a dozen albums to their name, along with a bookcase full of Junos (”the Canadian Grammy,” as the shorthand goes). In their homeland, they play large theaters, arenas, big festivals.

And, once in awhile, they dip down south and visit the States. They’re in the midst of one of those runs right now, to support The Things We Left Behind, a double-disc release that holds up rather well with their best work. Monday night, they played in my neck of the woods, at the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, North Carolina, to a couple hundred folks — a fair percentage of them displaced Canadians (you can tell, as they’re the ones who know most of the songs by heart), supplemented by a smattering of Americans who’ve managed to come across the band one way or other during the past 20 years.

Blue Rodeo is a really easy band to like. If you’re a fan of the Jayhawks, certainly, or probably even simply if you like Tom Petty or John Mellencamp or Bruce Springsteen, there’s a strong chance you would appreciate these guys. That old Rolling Stone quote was meant to underscore the quintessentially “American” nature of their music; North American, perhaps, but this is populist rock ‘n’ roll with a rootsy perspective, a healthy dose of country harmonies, and bluesy grooves permeating the narrative.

As with a lot of classic American bands, the essence revolves around a yin-yang partnership, in their case the congenial and sweet-voiced Jim Cuddy, and the more ruminative and rougher-edged Greg Keelor (That’s an oversimplification, of both of them really, but you get the point). Their longtime crew is no small part of the story: bassist Bazil Donovan has been there since mid-’80s the beginning, drummer Glenn Milchem joined in the early ’90s, and pedal steel guitarist Bob Egan (who spent the late ’90s in Wilco) is now a ten-year Blue Rodeo veteran.

But wait, there’s more. The latest in a line of keyboardists who have contributed significantly to the band’s sound over the years is Mike Boguski, who also sat in for several songs on this night with the excellent young opening act, Cuff The Duke (whose new album was produced by Keelor). Wayne Petti, the frontman for Cuff The Duke, returned the favor by joining Blue Rodeo onstage for about half of their songs, adding acoustic guitar accents and fine vocal harmonies. The real ringer, though, was Anne Lindsay, a firebrand of a fiddle player and superb supporting vocalist who helped take several songs to a whole ‘nother level during the night.

And so, on a sleepy Monday in a small venue on the edges of Chapel Hill, a band that routinely plays to thousands in its native Canada played a generous selection of their best material to a couple hundred fortunate folks, with a stage lineup ranging from six to eight musicians. Really, really good musicians. For a remarkably reasonable ticket price of 17 bucks.

For the Canadian transplants in the crowd, most of them accustomed to seeing the band at much larger venues, such a gig is probably dreamlike. For the band, well, maybe it’s not so great having to acknowledge that their top-tier success in Canada has never translated to the United States at anywhere near the same scale.

Then again, there is an element of this reality that is in fact quite a gift. Not many bands who reach large-venue status can still avail themselves of the opportunity to also play small clubs from time to time when they want to. Sure, you make a lot more money playing theaters and arenas and sheds … but just about any musician I’ve come across who’s worth a salt will allow that there’s nothing more fun than playing an intimate club gig. To have an outlet for reconnecting with such a fundamental musical experience, all the while knowing that the larger audiences are there for you back home, is in many ways a perfect balance.

Which is not to say Blue Rodeo wouldn’t love for a lot more Americans to hear their music. But if that doesn’t happen, well, hey, from the looks of things on this fair summer evening in the heart of Carolina, they’re gonna be just fine playing from their hearts for whoever’s fortunate enough to be out there in the crowd.

And for those of us who can’t be in Canada, our appreciation knows no bounds.

Peter Blackstock was co-founder and co-editor of No Depression magazine from 1995-2008, worked many years as a copy editor for daily newspapers in Seattle and Austin, and served as archivist for the SXSW music festival from 1989-1997. He blogs occasionally at That Magnificent Ghost.

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2010-05-30 08:09:56

PURPLE INTERVIEWS: This Memorial Day Weekend, Kick Back And Enjoy Six Months Of Great Conversation

Filed under: Chaplain Barry Black, Christian Caryl, Daniel Menaker, Featured, James Hynes, Pam Colloff, Paula Butturini, Peter Blackstock, Rep. Mark Formby, Rep. Steve Holland, Salman Hameed, Stephen Kiernan
Posted by: John

While we take a much needed break for Memorial Day weekend, have a look at six months of Purple Interviews. It’s a chat bonanza! If you’re fascinated by the conflict between religion and science, don’t miss this exchange with astronomer and humanities professor Salman Hameed about Islam, creationism and the television show Caprica. Or if you want the down and dirty on Florida politics in one of the most contentious mid-term elections years in memory, check out our talk with political insider and former Congressional Quarterly editor Neil Skene.

On the other hand, if you’re more interested in the global scene, dial into the big picture with former Newsweek correspondent and author Christian Caryl as he walks us through the world-changing events of the annus mirabilis 1979.

That’s just the beginning. Rear Admiral Barry Black, Chaplain of the United States Senate, talks civility and Jesus on Capitol Hill. Controversial author David Shields gives us an epic account of how reality television, memoir and YouTube are radically changing American culture. In part two of the conversation, we get down to the nitty gritty of storytelling on television and in novels. Meanwhile, author and raconteur Daniel Menaker schools us in the art of conversation, and Mississippi state representatives, Steve Holland, a Democrat, and Mark Formby, a Republican, teach us how abdominal crunches can lead to governnance.

For the rest, and there’s a lot, including novelist James Hynes on his masterpiece Next, Pam Colloff on the 15th anniversary of the murder of Tejano star Selena, Haleh Esfandiari on her stint in the heart of the Iranian prison system and Paula Butturini on her harrowing memoir Keeping The Feast , check out our Purple Interviews page.

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