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Globe and Mail - December 5, 2006
Just Songs I Had Lying Around
Greg Keelor can record his own stuff without having to worry about alienating his meal-ticket - Blue Rodeo fans. Other Canadian musicians have to work harder to find the balance
by Brad Wheeler
Band members make solo albums for a variety of reasons. A disc on the lone could be a lead singer's vanity project or a bass player, shut out of the group's songwriting process, who makes an "I'll show them!" dash to the spotlight. The latter model was first employed by the Rolling Stones' Bill Wyman in the 1960s, to savagely mediocre results.
Often a solo project is simply a matter of a group's chief songwriter having more songs than any one band can use. As well, said songwriter may wish to hear the compositions in the hands of a different set of players.
The reasons can be arty, personal or, in the case of Blue Rodeo's Greg Keelor, pragmatically reactive. Coming off the long-established Canadian band's tour in 2005, co-front man Jim Cuddy announced plans for a solo record. This was not dramatic news; individual projects outside the band had occurred without alarm before. Cuddy had previously released All in Time in 1998, while Keelor's personal discography counts 1997's Gone and last year's Seven Songs For Jim.
Upon hearing of Cuddy's scheme, Keelor pretty much shrugged. "I just realized that I was going to have a lot of time on my hands, so I might as well do one too," he says. Such was the nonchalant motivation behind Keelor's Aphrodite Rose, an album of psychedelic jangle-rock released this fall around the same time as Cuddy's The Light That Guides You Home.
Not to be outshone by the group's more visible personalities, Blue Rodeo's other members all have albums out or coming soon. Pedal-steel-guitarist Bob Egan has released the atmospheric The Glorious Decline, drummer Glenn Milchem's side project The Swallows are set to issue their latest CD Awkward Situation this week, and bassist Bazil Donovan is currently finishing up a collection of country cover tunes.
The rash of individual works this year extends beyond Blue Rodeo to other prominent Canadian ensembles. Emily Haines, the sleekly brash vocalist of Toronto's new-wave Metric, made a turn to sublime singer-songwriter for her solo debut Knives Don't Have Your Back. Keyboardist Kevin Hearn stepped away from the nutty commerce of the Barenaked Ladies for the thoughtful indie-pop of The Miracle Mile. And there may be more to come: the members of Sloan ruminate on the possibility of releasing four solo albums simultaneously -- much in the same co-ordinated manner as costume-rockers Kiss did in the late seventies.
Speaking in the cottage-like confines of Blue Rodeo's east-end studio, Keelor -- a rustic 51-year-old in boots, lumberjack shirt and slicked-back silver hair -- discusses the differences between Aphrodite Rose and his earlier solo records. "The first two were pretty thematically connected," he says, "where this one could've easily been a Blue Rodeo record."
Sparse, sombre and personal, Gone was recorded in the summer of 1996 at Pierre Marchand's studio in the Laurentians, with help from Sarah McLachlan. "I wanted a recording experience that was different, and I had all these songs," Keelor says. During the recording, he stayed at one of the cabins rented out by the family of songwriting sisters Kate and Anna McGarrigle. "I hung out with a different group of musicians," the singer-guitarist recalls. "I was at a certain point of my career, and it was refreshing."
Last year's Seven Songs for Jim, dedicated to his deceased father, could be seen as a companion piece to Gone. Keelor describes the songs on both records as "diary-like."
"They were groups of songs written at a specific time," he explains. "And part of a catharsis of whatever all that had built up."
As for the new Aphrodite Rose, there was less forethought. "It was just songs I had lying around," Keelor says. "A couple I wrote while I was making the record."
The idea was to record the album all by himself at his farm-home studio in Port Hope, Ont. "I'm not a good drummer or bass player," he admits, "but I play those instruments with a sort of amateuristic joy that is of the era that I like." That era would the age of the British Invasion of the Who, the Kinks and the Yardbirds, as well as the folk-rock of the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield that followed.
During the recording process, Keelor was approached by Travis Good, who had the idea of a short autumn tour featuring his band the Sadies and the Blue Rodeo mainstay. Keelor was up for it, but if he were going to do it, he would need help finishing the album in time. Good and others pitched in to speed up the pace.
The material of Aphrodite Rose and Cuddy's The Light That Guides You Home is not far removed from the things you would expect to hear on a Blue Rodeo disc, with Keelor edgier and heavier, and the pure-voiced Cuddy singing in the vein of Jackson Browne or Sister Golden Hair-America.
The songs, however, are not full-on Blue Rodeo. They haven't been put through the band's mill -- they haven't been moulded by the input and twists of the group's other members.
Haines is familiar with process of filtering songs through her bandmates. The material of her solo album originated in the same place -- on the piano -- as her Metric songs. "I always leave my songs three-quarters finished so that I can leave room for the rest of the band to put their meaning in," she says. "In the case of my solo album, there wasn't the final stage of adapting them."
Hearns's case is different, in that he is not a major songwriter for his primary band. And, while Cuddy and Keelor attract Blue Rodeo fans, Hearns is actually hamstrung by the association with the Ladies. "My problem has been trying to attract other people I know might like my music, but won't check it out because I'm a member of the Barenaked Ladies," Hearns reasons. "It's a funny thing."
Hearns, Haines and the members of Blue Rodeo are committed to their meal-ticket bands. For one thing, the success of the primary group affords them the time and money to record their various side and solo projects. Asked if he sees Blue Rodeo as a business, a family or group of friends, Keelor says yes to all three. "It's all of that. Jim and I have been friends since high school, and it's a little business to itself."
And one more thing, Keelor is quick to add. "It's a good band."
Ottawa Sun - November 1, 2006
New Greg Keelor Album Accessible
by Allan Wigney
"This album," Greg Keelor says of his third solo effort, Aphrodite Rose, "is so different from my other stuff. You don't have to be coming home from a funeral to enjoy it."
The flip critique is offered lightheartedly. But it is not without merit. Previously, the Blue Rodeo singer-songwriter had used the solo forum to exorcise personal demons and indulge in some very public grieving. The 1997 journey into darkness, Gone, was a song cycle inspired by unsettling discoveries about the composer; a second solo release, Seven Songs for Jim, was inspired by the death of his father.
And Aphrodite Rose?
"Blue Rodeo came off the road after doing the Are You Ready tour and Jim and I talked a bit about what we wanted to do," Keelor begins. "He said he wanted to do a solo record, so I said, 'I guess I'll do one too.'
"There's no great lyrical or thematic subtext to this record like there was to my other two records. It's just a collection of songs. The only thematic connection is that I wanted to record it all myself. I wanted to do everything."
Keelor produced and engineered the album. But he eventually ceded control of some of the playing to members of The Sadies. (There's also a guest vocal by Sarah McLachlan.) Sadies Travis Good and Mike Belitsky were already on hand for post-production work on the band's live album. And as Neko Case, Jon Spencer, Andre Williams and others well know, their arms are easily twisted when a collaboration is on offer.
"Travis phoned me up to tell me they were going to be going on the road in October and said, 'You should come along; we can back you up,' " Keelor recalls.
"I thought that was a great idea, but it meant I had to speed up my process considerably. I could easily still be sitting there in the studio if it was just me. So I brought them in to play on some songs."
The resulting album boasts an accessibility that might shock the devoted fans who invested the necessary time and emotion into Keelor's previous solo work. But, of course, Blue Rodeo fans do not need to be reminded Keelor can write and sing accessible pop music with the best of them.
And on Aphrodite Rose, accessibility rules, even to the extent Keelor happily dips into the archives to resurrect a long-lost Blue Rodeo tune (If You Go) and a sentimental love song (Colour and Rhyme) that predates even that ensemble.
"I don't remember much," Keelor jokes, "but there are a few songs that stick around. I've always liked Colour and Rhyme; I like the innocence of it and I like that it's of a time. It goes back to around '79 and The HiFis 49, the first band Jim and I were in.
"You know, two of my favourite eras in music are the two British Invasions -- the original one in the mid 1960s and the punk one in '77. And Colour and Rhyme is very much in that British Invasion style -- or at least in the style of North American bands influenced by the British Invasion, like The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield. The HiFis were very much of that sort of sound."
Twenty-seven years later, Keelor demonstrates he can still be of that sound. (Particularly when in the company of The Sadies, whose recent albums have echoed Younger Than Yesterday-era Byrds.)
"My musicianship is limited on various instruments, which forces a certain style of music -- a sort of joyful amateuristic thing," Keelor says. "But I think my heart still lies in that era. The sound of those records is still my favourite sound. So engineering this record, for me, was very enjoyable, because I could just try to zone in on those sounds."
CanWest News Service - October 27, 2007
Solo Careers Vital to Survival
by Theresa Tayler
CALGARY -- Greg Keelor doesn't shave, nor does he care what anyone thinks about him.
Jim Cuddy likes to keep people smiling, and, by the way, his cheeks are silky smooth.
If it's true opposites attract, the creative twosome behind Canada's reigning alt-country institution, Blue Rodeo, are a perfect match.
They've been spinning out their own distinctive brand of Canadian honky tonk meets pop folk sound for more than 20 years now. And while some less creative marriages might have failed long ago, Keelor and Cuddy -- or Cuddy and Keelor (depending on who you ask) have stuck it out.
Yet, with every great partnership comes the need for personal space, which is why each is pursuing solo paths they say are integral to both their own survival and that of Blue Rodeo.
"It's great being in a band, it's a family and it's fun. But, when you've been together for as long as we have, you can get into ruts," says Keelor in the back room of Calgary's James Joyce Pub.
The silver-haired figure sitting in the corner, sipping tea in front of the fire on this October press tour stop in support of his new album, Aphrodite Rose, blends into the background of the bar.
Weeks earlier, Cuddy was here on a meet-and-greet mission to market his own disc, The Light That Guides You Home. Besides Blue Rodeo, they appear to have little in common.
While Keelor prefers to be tucked away in the back of a smoky watering hole, Cuddy chose a room in Calgary's swanky Palliser Hotel.
"Hello, come on in -- sit down," Cuddy, clearly comfortable with reporters, says with a big bright smile, pointing to the seat in front of him.
Keelor, on the other hand, says a quiet hello and nonchalantly settles back down in his corner seat -- a much less eager interviewee.
"Usually Jim does this stuff, this 'meet with the press stuff', ' " he says. "But, I don't mind it -- this is actually kind of fun."
Both are known for their sometimes subtle, sometimes stark differences; Cuddy often labelled as the soft and sensitive side of the twosome and Keelor the darker character.
"Greg is more cynical and I'm a little more optimistic," says Cuddy. "But at the core we share a very similar sensibility. Everybody must realize we get slotted into the archetypes, and it's neither true nor false. I think though that we're probably more true to our believed archetypes than not."
The Light That Guides You Home is Cuddy's second solo release. His first, All In Time, was released in 1998, two years after Keelor's solo debut.
Cuddy's latest collection is similar in feel to that of Blue Rodeo, a selection of folky, melodic and lyrically sentimental songs.
"The theme that keeps coming up in this album is accepting life as it is, which is part of the psychology of my age," he says. "As you get older you fight less against the big things you think you can change and you start to appreciate that even though some things in your life can cause you great pain, there's huge benefits to longevity."
One of the more upbeat tracks on the album, "Married Again," a duet with fellow Canadian country songwriter Kathleen Edwards, is about a couple who run off to Vegas to get a quick divorce, spend the night drinking to celebrate their separation and end up married to one another again.
"It's based on truth, it's about a news item I read in the States. I always wanted to write something like June Carter and Johnny's Cash's "Jackson" -- that kind of in your face, 'we got married in a fever,' vibe," says Cuddy singing the classic Carter-Cash tune while tapping his cowboy boot in time.
Keelor's Aphrodite Rose, on the other hand, is a million miles away from what Blue Rodeo fans are used to hearing from Cuddy's other half -- a raw, rather psychedelic rock n' roll record backed by Canadian twangsters The Sadies.
Keelor's first two releases were not considered commercially successful. His 2005 release, Seven Songs for Jim, was an ohmage to his recently deceased father. His first album, Gone, was about dealing with being adopted as a baby.
Blue Rodeo, meanwhile, will regroup early next year, likely in February, to begin work on their 13th album, following the 2005 release of Are You Ready.
Neither sees their solo work detracting from the group.
"I don't stockpile songs for my own records. I consider that there's a covenant in Blue Rodeo that we all hold -- we're committed to each other and respect each other," says Cuddy.
"The thing with a band is, you're sort of a family," agrees Keelor. "But, at some point you want to be recognized for yourself -- it just so happens that things were happening in my life and at those times I've had a ton of songs that I could produce alone."
Calgary Sun - October 25, 2006
Blue Rodeo's Keelor Gets Help From Pals
by Rob Honzell
They were due for a break.
Blue Rodeo had just returned from touring their 2005 album, Are You Ready, and frontmen Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor asked themselves, 'What do you want to do now?'
"(Jim) said he wanted to do a solo album, so I figured, well, I guess I'll do one too ... I'm going to have all this extra time on my hands," says Keelor, who will be in town to play songs from his new record, Aphrodite Rose, with The Sadies at Mac Hall on Oct. 27.
"It's gonna be a blast," he says.
And having a blast is what Keelor hoped to accomplish with this new album.
"My previous solo albums (1997's Gone and 2005's Seven Songs for Jim) were so full of subtext and melancoly," says Keelor.
Not that he minded that, but he wanted Aphrodite Rose to be an album full of "amateuristic joy."
"I wanted to do it all myself," says Keelor, who explains though his talents as a drummer are merely passable, he was keen on playing every instrument on the album.
"Then I realized I would have been there forever."
That's when The Sadies -- an alternative country-rock act from Toronto -- were brought in to help.
"The great thing about bringing someone fresh in is you could have been in a rut for a couple of years and not even known it," says Keelor.
"It helps you remember the limitless possibilities of life that music offers.
That's where the idea of 'amateuristic joy' comes in.
Keelor says he wanted to capture the pure love for music he remembered feeling when he heard inspiring songs and artists when he was younger.
"When you're young, in like three minutes of a song, or that opening snare beat of (Bob Dylan's) "Like a Rolling Stone" ... the possibilities are limitless."
"You realize you don't necessarily have to do those things that have been laid out before you. The world is full of choices and horizons.
"It's more the possibilities of the music that I really love."
He looks back on the original British invasion, when bands such as Cream and The Beatles swept in with their rock-tinged tunes, as a moment in history he wanted to capture.
"They were just playing music for the sake of playing music ... because they loved it," says Keelor.
This love of what music offers shines through on Aphrodite Rose.
Keelor is obviously having fun on this record.
And that joy was helped along by one of Canada's sweetest voices, Sarah McLachlan.
Keelor and McLachlan had worked together several times in the past, including on the song "Dark Angel" from Five Days in May, a track Keelor refers to as "probably the best recording I've ever done."
"We were great friends, and for whatever reason I hadn't really seen her all that much in the past 10 years or so," says Keelor.
"So I had this solo album I felt was worthy of her beauty and grace and elegance ... and I called her up and asked her if she'd like to be on it and she graciously accepted."
But guest appearances aside, Keelor says Blue Rodeo fans don't need to worry: The band is still together, and the relationship between Keelor and Cuddy is stronger than ever.
"It's more than just a friendship, we're like brothers," says Keelor.
Keelor even credits Cuddy with making him want to learn how to play the guitar.
"I didn't start playing guitar until I saw him hanging out with his friends, drinking beer and getting high and playing music. I just said 'I wanna do that.' "
Tickets for Keelor's show can be purchased through Ticketmaster.
Ottawa Citizen - October 24, 2006
Music the Old-fashioned Way
Greg Keelor's latest solo album had a little help from his friends
by Lynn Saxberg
Greg Keelor likes old stuff. Whether it's a car, motorcycle, camera or studio gear, he prefers vintage technology to the latest in gadgetry, a predilection that's evident on his new solo disc, Aphrodite Rose, one of my favourite Canadian releases this year.
The lyrics are spiked with social commentary but the music is ripe with jangly guitars, throwing back to early British invasion and American psychedelia. Plus there's a warmth to the sound that comes from recording on tape.
"No computers," Keelor points out over lunch at Chez Lucien, a downtown Ottawa watering hole that features a jukebox stocked with hits from days gone by. Keelor would be impressed, but the bustling lunch-hour wasn't the right time to introduce it.
Besides, I didn't want to distract him from either his Caesar salad or the topic of discussion. Keelor is half of the core songwriting duo behind Canadian country-rockers Blue Rodeo, and I've always found him an intriguing guy. His partner, Jim Cuddy, can be counted on to crank out love songs that please the ladies, but you never know what to expect from Keelor. He's responsible for some of Blue Rodeo's most dark and moody songs, while his two previous solo outings have exposed a hefty amount of personal pain. He never struck me as outgoing by nature, and can be a challenge to interview.
But there's little emotional baggage on Aphrodite Rose, and Keelor was keen to talk about it. Wearing a Western-style shirt and rose-coloured aviator shades, he says it's no coincidence that he and Cuddy both released solo discs this fall.
"When we came off the road last time with Blue Rodeo, Jim said he was going to do one so I knew I was going to have a lot of time on my hands, so I thought I'd better make a record," Keelor says.
He set out to make the record entirely on his own -- from the writing, singing and playing to engineering and artwork -- but soon realized it would take forever to finish. When his good friend, Sadies' musician Travis Good, called to see if he would join them on their fall tour, he decided to step up the pace.
"That sounded like a good idea, so I said, 'You gotta come over and help me finish the record,' Keelor recalls.
"If Travis is playing on it, you know it's going to be that much better when it's finished."
Keelor values the musical connections he has with his friends. With Good, it started years ago when the Sadies played a one-off show with Blue Rodeo, then joined them on the Palace of Gold tour. Keelor and Good went on to form a side band, the Unintended, with Rick White, formerly of Eric's Trip and Elevator.
"I was blown away by his musicianship," Keelor says.
"Travis is one of those rare musicians that just plays it right and plays it beautifully. He just knows exactly what works."
Another high-profile friend on the album is Sarah McLachlan, who lends her angelic voice to four songs. Again, it's a creative relationship that dates back more a decade.
"She's always been one of my favourite vocalists, even before she was 'Sarah McLachlan,'" Keelor says, emphasizing her name as if it were in lights, "and I always liked singing with her. She's very busy but she made time for old friends."
Most of the new disc was recorded in Keelor's home studio near Peterborough. The 24-track facility is equipped with Pro Tools, the computer-based music-editing and fix-up program, but Keelor stuck to his favourite "archaic" technology: one-inch, eight-track tape.
"Whatever you put on really has to count. It's gotta be a statement that means something because you only have eight tracks," he says.
"It is a little bit like having a hotrod -- if you put headers on it, you gotta make sure they're working well. If you put dual exhaust on it, it's got a certain sound and the only way you can get that sound is to use dual exhaust. Same with tape. It has a certain transience at the bottom end that is not transferred in the digital world."
Keelor and the Sadies play Barrymore's on Nov. 1. Tickets and times, 613-755-1111.
The Saskatoon StarPhoenix - October 19, 2006
Solo CD Revitalizes Keelor
Blue Rodeo singergets help from friendsfor latest undertaking
by Cam Fuller
There are a couple of things you expect going into a Greg Keelor interview on the subject of his new solo album.
You assume he'll say the timing is merely a coincidence, that Aphrodite Rose just happens to have come out around the same time as Blue Rodeo bandmate Jim Cuddy's solo album The Light that Guides You Home.
And you assume that doing a solo album gives Keelor an outlet for songs that don't fit the Blue Rodeo mold.
Wrong on both counts.
"Jim said he was doing one, so I said I'm going to do one too,'' Keelor said recently, his tone humorously petulant.
As for the sound, despite the more soul-delving songs on his previous solo efforts, Keelor says any of the Aphrodite Rose tunes could be on a Blue Rodeo album, "no problem.''
In another surprise, you assume Keelor to be the more uptight, less fun of the two. But he's actually really funny and flippant.
The one area where Keelor meets your expectations is on the topic of the more upbeat tone of the new album compared to past solos Gone and the one dedicated to his late father, Songs for Jim.
"I just had so much fun making it,'' he says. "My first two records were pretty dramatic with heavy subtext and themes.''
What started out as a total solo project, with Keelor playing all the instruments in his home studio, became more of a group effort when he brought in Travis and Dallas Good and their band The Sadies as his players. They helped capture the early British Invasion sound Keelor wanted the album to start with. That sound accounts for the surprising degree of boppiness on the album.
Associating with The Sadies has helped revitalize Keelor.
"You gotta keep your stick on the ice and your head up because The Sadies are so great,'' he says.
"You know, I've been in Blue Rodeo for 23 years and Jim and I have been in bands since 1978. You can be in a rut for a couple of years and not even know it. Just the sound of the Sadies is so inspiring to me and their musicianship was so fantastic it just reminded me what music is capable of.''
The Toronto Star - October 19, 2006
A Block And Tackle Kind of Beginning
by Greg Quill
"I first met Jim Cuddy on the football field in high school," recalls guitarist and songwriter Greg Keelor, who co-founded the Canadian country rock outfit Blue Rodeo with Cuddy some 20 years ago.
"He was the quarterback in the junior team. I was in the senior team, a year older, and I nailed him. When he complained, I grabbed him by his facemask and threw him to the ground.
"That's more or less the nature of our relationship to this day."
Keelor adds that his decision to use a break in Blue Rodeo's demanding schedule - partly due to Cuddy's recent throat surgery, partly because Cuddy wanted to record a solo album - to record his own solo opus, his third since the late 1990s, comes down to "adolescent competitiveness. If he's going to do a solo album, I'm going to do one, too."
The gnarled road warrior to Cuddy's cowboy prince, Keelor eschewed just about every classy device and high-end industrial standard his bandmate has embraced for Aphrodite Rose.
Recorded on a second-hand eight-track Ampex analog tape recorder - state-of-the-art studio equipment circa 1968 - and with a little help from rustic Toronto alt-country outfit The Sadies, Keelor's album is everything Cuddy's polished, expensive and expansive The Light That Guides You Home is not: raw, experimental, retro-centric, minimalist. "I started out playing most of the instruments myself, as well as engineering the sessions," says Keelor, who starts touring the album, backed by The Sadies, this week in Winnipeg and winds up in Kingston Nov. 2. A Toronto date has yet to be finalized.
Aphrodite Rose is as far from Blue Rodeo's stately country pop as Keelor can wander. "I'm so out of touch with what's going on in the music business that I decided to indulge myself. I've always loved primitive psychedelic music, the kind of stuff Country Joe and The Fish and Jefferson Airplane used to do in San Francisco ... and King Crimson in England - lots of drums and reverb and guitar feedback, and the sound that you get by recording on tape. A couple of the songs on this album are very old, like 1978.
"My first two solo albums were very personal. I was dealing with finding my birth mother, then my father's death.
Aphrodite Rose Press Release - October, 2006
"A friend of mine described my first two records as perfect for a rainy day. This record is more about me feeling on top of the world."
-Greg Keelor, September 2006
On Tuesday October 10, 2006, Warner Music Canada will release Aphrodite Rose, the third solo record from Greg Keelor, the co-frontman of Blue Rodeo. On Aphrodite Rose Greg explores the full range of his musical influences, capturing the raw energy of rock and roll.
Aphrodite Rose was produced by Greg at his home studio and features guest appearances from The Sadies and Sarah MacLachlan. When he began recording, however, he had intended to play everything himself.
"The first song I recorded was "No Man's Land" and it turned out so well I thought ‘this is going to be fun,' says Keelor. "It was about keeping things simple and capturing the song's energy. Making a record is so much fun but finishing the record would have been tough for me as I was doing everything myself."
Instead of struggling through it all himself, Greg enlisted The Sadies to help create the sounds that reminded him of so many of his favourite bands. Bands from the British Invasion and American bands that were similarly influenced by the creative burst coming like a shockwave from the U.K. In the end, tracks like the first single, "No Man's Land," echo the explosion of early Who albums while "Prisoner" could have been a rave-up taken from The Yardbirds catalogue. In addition, Sarah MacLachlan has lent her voice to a number of Greg Keelor songs over the years, including four on this record, and her turn on "Miss You" is simply ethereal.
Just as he was exploring his influences from various eras, Greg also went back to some of the songs he has composed during the different eras of his own life.
"I wrote some songs just for this record but some songs are bits and pieces of things that had been written over the years."
The song "Colour and Rhyme" was one of the first songs Greg wrote as a member of The HiFi's (his first band with longtime musical partner Jim Cuddy) while "If You Go" was an early Blue Rodeo song that never made it to record. "Glory Oh" started out as a poem to his girlfriend and music was added a year later. More recent compositions ("No Man's Land," "Prisoner" and "In The Reflections") were written while driving back and forth to his cabin near Minden, Ontario.
With the completion of Aphrodite Rose, Greg has created an album of psychedelic country and retro pop, a record that soars with jangly guitars and draws the listener in with intimate lyrics and nuanced performances. A record that can break your heart one moment and lift it the next, Aphrodite Rose is quintessential Greg Keelor.
Greg Keelor will support Aphrodite Rose with a tour in October and November with The Sadies and Andre Athier (The Deadly Snakes). Blue Rodeo will return to the studio in 2007 to work on their next album. Meanwhile, Blue Rodeo co-frontman, Jim Cuddy, has recently released his own solo album, The Light That Guides You Home.
Victoria Times Colonist - October, 19, 2006
Keelor's Solo Path Becomes Brighter
by Adrian Chamberlain
PREVIEW
Who: Greg Keelor with the Sadies
Where: Central Bar & Grill
When: Monday, 8 p.m.
Tickets: $15 advance, $18 door
- - -
Greg Keelor of Blue Rodeo admits a rave review from Rolling Stone almost 20 years ago made him go, well, slightly ga-ga.
In 1987, the powerful music magazine wrote of the band's debut, Outskirts: "The best new American band might very well be Canadian."
"I remember the day I bought that Rolling Stone," said Keelor, who is performing with The Sadies in Victoria on Monday. "It was at Yonge and St. Claire in Toronto, in a drugstore. I picked it up, I saw the review. I thought it was world domination."
Hey, who wouldn't? The citation did indeed garner Blue Rodeo global attention. But they never quite exploded into the Next Big Thing internationally. Still, Keelor thinks the steady build the band achieved throughout Canada (where the group is indeed famous) and in pockets of the U.S. was better, overall. He suspects becoming a superstar would, at least in his case, have led to rapid burn-out.
His new solo album, Aphrodite Rose, is the work of a rocker who has managed to reach the ripe age of 52 with mind and soul more or less intact. The collection of mostly acoustic-style songs -- recorded with The Sadies' Travis Good on guitar and drummer Mike Belitsky -- is replete with echoes of classic rock.
Keelor, who says his favourite period in rock is 1966 to 1972, is clearly influenced by such acts as the Byrds, Neil Young and Buffalo Springfield.
Keelor originally intended to write and record Aphrodite Rose by himself at his home studio near Toronto. In May, The Sadies -- old friends of his -- asked him to join them for an October tour. Keelor said OK, but only if they would lend a hand so he could get his solo album out quicker.
The singer-songwriter said it's a sunnier disc than his previous, more introspective solo recordings. Gone (1996) reflected his search for his birth mother after finding out he was adopted. Seven Songs for Jim (2005) was dedicated to his deceased father.
"This one isn't about anything especially; it's just about playing music," Keelor said. "This one's a totally different vibe."
The work of a more mature artist, perhaps?
"Maybe it's mature. I just see things differently now. I have a wider perspective of myself inside the machine, rather than just bein' the guy making sure I'm getting my part done. I don't think I could have ever done a record like this when I was a whipper-snapper."
Stylistically, Aphrodite Rose seems a lot different from Blue Rodeo. Keelor agrees. He said he enjoys making a solo album mostly because he calls all the shots. In Blue Rodeo, everyone's a producer with their own two bits to contribute.
The singer-guitarist said he's looking forward to playing with The Sadies (he appears as a guest on their new disc, The Sadies: In Concert, Volume I). As far as his own career -- both solo and with Blue Rodeo -- Keelor hopes it lasts until he's an old duffer.
"I love performing and I love being on the road," said Keelor. "I like the whole thing."
