A Conversation with Blackie & The Rodeo Kings – HuffPost 6.6.11
Mike Ragogna: What’s the origin of Blackie & The Rodeo Kings?
Colin Linden: We got together at the end of 1995 to do a tribute album to our our friend and hero, Willie P. Bennett. My wife and I were sitting at our kitchen table conspiring when we started talking about tribute albums–I had been involved in a few by then. We thought it would be so cool to do a tribute to Willie. He was so great and still so “unsung.” I went and checked my email a minute later and found that I had received one from Stephen Fearing, who I didn’t know that well at the time, suggesting that it would be cool for us to get together and do some project involving Willie’s music. It was too serendipitous to be coincidental. One call to Tom Wilson and the idea that we should style it as a tribute band instead of just a tribute record, and here we are.
MR: Then was your 1996 tribute album to Willie P. Bennett supposed to be a one shot at the time?
CL: You bet, but Bernie Finkelstein, Stephen’s manager and the guy who agreed to put the album out on his label True North loved the record so much that he asked if we could play a few shows to support the release. We fell in love with each other and 15 years later, we’re still a band and still playing lots of Will’s songs.
Tom Wilson: Yes. It was just a little get together in Hamilton that’s lasted 15 years!
Stephen Fearing: A simple hello/goodbye, and then somebody asked us to do few shows…one thing led to another.
MR: What inspired you to record an album with an all female cast?
CL: We love women so much and we have been lucky enough to have some amazing female artists as friends and supporters. We thought it would be a great tribute to do an album where we worked with some of them and made some new friends to work with too.
TW: Colin came up with the idea in a railway car we were hanging out in Crossing Canada.
SF: I recall a van ride…I thought it started before the train.
MR: Okay, how did you decide which artists to include?
CL: Well, a few of them were so great to us to begin with–Pam Tillis, Rosanne Cash, Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams among them–that we thought if they were interested in being on this, it would be an amazing start. And then we sorted out what songs we thought we’d like to do and started piecing things together and matching artists with songs. There were lots of things to consider, but each piece fell into place to make it better and better.
SF: We didn’t, so much as the Queens decided.
MR: How did the tracklist originate?
CL: Mostly, it was the songs we had written and in a couple of cases, collected, that we felt we wanted to share with another personality. I wanted to have Emmy(lou Harris) sing on one of Willie P. Bennett’s songs to honor Will’s memory–he passed away on February 15, 2008–and she chose “Step Away.”
SF: We all brought songs and ideas to the table, chose the ones we wanted, recorded them–that whole process took a week or so. Then, Colin packed his bags and sent a postcard whenever he got the chance.
MR: What are the dynamics in the studio when Colin Linden, Stephen Fearing and Tom Wilson record?
CL: Like The Marx Brothers meeting a barrel of monkeys and taking a vacation with The Lord of the Flies…
SF: Yabba Dabba Doo!
MR: Where did you record Kings And Queens?
CL: We tracked at Sound Emporium in Nashville and Phase One Studio and Canterbury Sound in Toronto, and then we got the Queens in many, many studios. Then we reconvened at The Rendering Plant in Nashville and I finished it at our studio, Pinhead Recorders.
MR: Will you be touring to support the album?
CL: If they’ll have us…
TW: Till the wheels fall off the wagon..
MR: What does the future bring for Blackie & The Rodeo Kings?
CL: Hopefully lots of playing and new songs, getting better, developing more music with and without our Queens.
MR: What’s your advice for new artists?
CL: Everything that is great about you is already there, so play from the heart. Knowing the business is okay and means something, but the music has got to come first or it means nothing. And the longer you hang in, the better you will get and the more of a chance you will have to fulfill your dreams
SF: Never leave your wallet in the dressing room.