Interview with Greg Keelor ​​| The dream Canada of Blue Rodeo

At the time of the resurgence of unifoliée pride. Furthermore, the Montreal International Jazz Festival could not find better guest than Blue Rodeo, the most Canadian groups of Canadian groups. Moreover, Conversation with singer Greg Keelor ​​about his unknown Montreal past.

Posted at 7:00 a.m.

In an interview granted in October 2024 to the magazine Toronto Lifeon the occasion of their enthronement to the pantheon of Canadian authors. In addition, composers, the coleader of Blue Rodeo Jim Cuddy remembered the glorious arrival of the one who would become his partner, Greg Keelor, in their secondary school in Toronto. For example, It was in 1971. Consequently, Unforgettable interview greg keelor ​​| dream first impression. Moreover, “He had a gigantic Afro cut and he was dressed differently, with a kind of Montreal style. Therefore, »»

A Montreal style? However, That’s to say ? Therefore, Greg Keelor. Furthermore, whose wardrobe now seems only composed of checkered shirts and denim jackets, laughs gently on his side of the screen.

As a child. Moreover, he will have a lot of burning, from his native Nova Scotia to the Toronto region, then to Montreal, where his family settled in 1963, before this return to the Queen city which allowed him, thanks to his flamboyant look, to be noticed in class by Cuddy.

From his parenthesis of just under a decade in Montreal. where he arrived at the age of almost 10 years, the septuagenarian keeps near his heart the memory of his hockey games within the Eagles of TMR, as well as that of the fries “really tastier than all that I had been able to taste in the suburbs of Toronto”.

Interview greg keelor ​​| dream

Excite spectrum

At the turn of the 1990s. Montreal was one of the first cities to welcome the Country Rock with high melodic content of Blue Rodeo. From 1988 to 1991. the Toronto group played no less than ten times in the metropolis, including seven with the late Spectrum, “perhaps the most exciting shows in our entire career,” according to Keelor.

Blue Rodeo even recorded in 1990 a song entitled Montréalwritten by a Jim Cuddy who. it is not invented, also spent a few years from his youth in the metropolis.

Authentic Canadian heroes, Blue Rodeo members bound to be the best. Greg Keelor. the lucky ones, frequented the mysterious organist Garth Hudson, a last survivor of the legendary formation The Band which, in January, flew to play the organ under the most celestial latitudes.

“What was most beautiful in our relationship,” he says, “is what I could call him, without reason, just to chat. Compared to the other guys from The Band. who were all joyful, it was he, the quietest, but on the phone, interview greg keelor ​​| dream alone, he could speak, speak, speak for hours. »»

What is Canada?

Unlike The Band. which was undermined by lively intestine quarrels, Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor ​​have never crossed too stormy baffles. This is partly what testifies Blue Rodeo : Lost Togetherthe sympathetic documentary offered on CBC GEM. enlightening courses 101 about the most Canadian of Canadian groups, a phenomenon to which French -speaking Quebec, it must be said, has remained more indifferent.

But what exactly is Canadian identity? Greg Keelor ​​knows how to give a less convoluted definition than those of the aspiring prime ministers during the. last debate of the chiefs?

“I think that before talking about the positive. we must name our horrible colonial story,” replied the man who came into contact with the Nlaka’Pamux nation at the beginning of the 1990s, by participating in a benefit show so that the Stein Valley, in British Colombia, is protected. It had really opened our eyes to the excruciating injustices that the indigenous peoples lived. This is where we started to get into it.

His most recent solo album. Share the Love (2021), he was partly inspired by a show by Blue Rodeo in Waskaganish in Nord-du-Québec in 2018. “For us. truth and reconciliation, it is not just a interview greg keelor ​​| dream view of the mind, it is very concrete,” he said before resuming his mission.

“Listen. I am 70 years old, I spent the summer of 1967 on the island of Sainte-Hélène, then the idea that I have of Canadian identity tends towards a social democracy with humanitarian values. And also towards proximity to nature, with the territory. Expo 67 had promised us a future of openness. solidarity which has never completely materialized, but which still inspires me to date. In my eyes, Canada was at that time the coolest country in the world. »»

Friday June 27 at 9:30 p.m. on the TD scene

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