40 years of Blue Rodeo: Keelor and Cuddy's friendship is at the heart of the band's success

Blue Rodeo is one of Canada's most beloved bands.  At the heart of the group is a songwriting team dubbed the Lennon and McCartney of Canada — lifelong friends Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor.

The documentary Blue Rodeo: Lost Together offers a rare peek into the formative days of their friendship. 

"Our first actual meeting was a bit of a confrontation," Keelor said in the film. "We met on a football field where I was a defensive end and he was a quarterback. [Jim] was throwing the ball, and I was on his blind side. And just as he was about to let go, I creamed him." 

However, the two were not fated to remain rivals. In the aftermath of a friend's death, Cuddy revealed his previously hidden musical talent, and Keelor began to see him in a new light.

"A friend of ours died in a car accident," Keelor said. "At that age — 16, 17 — you had a total loss of how to react and how to be with each other.

"We were sitting in Jim's mother's house, and there was a beautiful parlour piano in there. And Jim sat down at the piano.… He wrote a song for [our friend] David Soper. And we're all just, like, dumbfounded. We're all crying. I had never heard Jim sing before." 

Cuddy remembered that day. "I kept all my musical stuff very private because it was very embarrassing at that age," he said in an interview. "I remember the scene and I don't know why I was nervy enough to play it there." 

Inspired in part by Cuddy, Keelor would later pick up the guitar. Soon, music would flow through both of them.

Though Cuddy and Keelor were a study in contrast, they became friends. Cuddy was disciplined — "a provider," Keelor said. Keelor had a "maverick spirit," said Cuddy.  

After high school, the two stayed connected.  

Cuddy was buoyed by Keelor taking music as seriously as he did. "I never thought in the early days that Greg was doing this half-heartedly," Cuddy said. "I always thought that he was fully committed, as was I."  

When the time was right, they started a band.

"When I finished university in the spring of '78, you very kindly came to pick me up," Cuddy told Keelor in the documentary. "And we're driving back, and I was saying to you that I was going to devote a year to music. And you said, 'Why don't we get a band?' And I said 'Yes.' 

"And we've honestly had a band together ever since that moment."

That band took on a variety of guises before it became Blue Rodeo.  

Blue Rodeo formed in 1984 and ever since, they've been known for their indefatigable work ethic and goodwill. Seminal, stunning records like Outskirts, Five Days in July and The Things We Left Behind would embed them in the nation's fabric. 

Through it all, Cuddy and Keelor's friendship has remained the foundation of the band. 

"The relationship between Jim and I is a funny one, of course, and a beautiful one," Keelor said. "It's an uncanny sort of friendship in this sort of storybook. Our social security numbers are eight digits apart, so we sort of have this connection."

"We've committed to each other and trust that commitment to each other," Cuddy said. "And obviously it's worked out, but we've also had this crazy shared experience that now we look at each other and think, 'You can't describe this to anybody' — the things that have happened to us, the things we've done, the way we've been treated, good and bad. And so there's a huge love and fondness in that, in our shared lives."

Watch Blue Rodeo: Lost Together on CBC Gem and the CBC Docs YouTube channel.

Ralph Chapman is a longtime documentary and scripted writer and producer.  Born in Toronto, he moved out of the city in search of his own backyard and less traffic.