Blue Rodeo is celebrating their 40th anniversary in 2025.
That span includes a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame, an appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, an incredible 12 Junos, and earlier this month, their own Canada Post stamp.
Ahead of two summer shows that Quinte News/Mix 97, CJBQ, and Rock 107 are presenting, we sat down with Jim Cuddy to discuss the Guitars and Gasoline Festival in Calabogie and Canada Day at Base31 in Picton.
Cuddy’s mother grew up in Cherry Valley and he says he knows Base31 well, but in a past life, when it was known as the Picton airstrip.
Audio Player“We went up there to scare ourselves when we were young and it was abandoned, like what was this? Now there’s a big venue up on the hill. There’s definitely colliding memories for me. It happened when I played The Regent Theatre too, cause that’s where we used to be dumped off with my brother to see double features when we were younger.”
The Jim Cuddy Band and Blue Rodeo have performed numerous times in the Quinte region, including an untold number of visits to Belleville’s Empire Theatre, where our chat took place Thursday, ahead of a sold out Jim Cuddy Band performance.
Cuddy says the festival shows, like the one in Calabogie, are a family reunion with the other bands/artists.
Audio Player“Canadian musicians get along with each other very well. There’s not the same kind of prize at the top worth crawling over anybody’s back here. There’s always been this ethos of sharing resources, playing with each other, turning each other onto music. Anything that provides opportunity for us or for anybody to get together with bands they know. We pretty much know everybody now. It’s a really good thing.”
The full interview can be heard below.
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(Photo: Heather Pollock)
