Tom Wilson and Colin Linden joined Douglas McLean for conversation about their stirring and powerful new album, O Glory, and other works from their vast catalogue for his latest Sound Cafe Podcast, 'Backstage'.
You can listen to the entire interview and music HERE
No other band has bought together such individual talent to such a collective, enduring musical style than Blackie and The Rodeo Kings. Songwriters Colin Linden, Tom Wilson and Stephen Fearing have blazed the airways with their own unique brand of song and performance but as Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, they have mastered and crafted a music genre all to themselves. Loved and much revered by fans and audiences around the world, their albums and long career have become iconic in the roots-rock and folk–country genre.
Tom Wilson and Colin Linden joined Backstage’s Douglas McLean for conversation about their stirring and powerful new album, O Glory, and other works from their vast catalogue.
If any band was uniquely positioned to withstand the impossible demands made by despicable COVID-19, it was Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. The proof is in their blazing new album, O Glory. While much of the planet struggled to find new ways of working, singer/songwriter and guitarists Stephen Fearing, Colin Linden, and Tom Wilson coolly leveraged the flexibility that’s sustained them for 25 years, sheltering in their respective home bases of Victoria, BC, Nashville, TN, and Hamilton, ON, while using technology to bridge the chasm separating them from each other and from their rhythm section of Gary Craig and John Dymond.
With Linden producing from his Nashville digs, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings wrote and recorded 13 alternately roots-rock, folk, country, and Americana-style songs, ultimately crafting what Linden confirms is the band’s most “spiritual and political” musical statement to date.
Adds Fearing, “Like a lot of musicians, after the initial shock of the pandemic lockdown, the impetus became finding ways to connect with the world. Technology has come so far in the last few years, and it has made remote recording possible. I pounced on it. Colin gave me a lot of advice and took charge musically. It was then a matter of coming up with songs and getting them to each other.”
As they have since forming as a one-off to honour late folk hero Willie P. Bennett — continuing as smitten audiences demanded it — the JUNO Award–winning Blackie and the Rodeo Kings chase musical excellence while having a ball playing with their friends. Talk about a great gig.
FEATURED SONGS:
Blue Moon Drive (feat. Chuck Copenace)
Has Anyone Seen My Baby Here Tonight?
Stop and Listen
Grand River
I Sleep Like a Fugitive
I Will See You in the Morning
You can listen to the entire interview and music HERE
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