Interview with Blake Reid

Cremona, Alberta's Blake Reid's new album Rust showcases his status status as a true workingman’s poet, following in the footsteps of Merle Haggard and Tom T. Hall. At the same time, he is no traditionalist. The album’s first single, “Sounds Like A Song,” is the kind of hard-edged, instantly memorable track perfectly suited for a Saturday night play list, or as something to sing along with to make that long drive go a little bit faster. And as a testament to the power of songcraft, it’s also a reflection of the only real musical education Blake ever had, listening to AM radios installed in the trucks, tractors and combines he commandeered throughout his youth.

“I’ve always written songs, but during the years while performing in the club and rodeo circuits, we had to limit the amount of original material we were playing. In 2011 I decided to take a break from the band and really concentrate on writing songs that spoke to who I was, and to just be me without apology. I discovered right away how much people appreciated that, and I started building a new following. Getting a standing ovation the first time I played Big Valley Jamboree really confirmed it all for me, and since then I can’t see any way to do things other than just be who I am.”

And while much of the material on Rust is rooted in the Alberta soil that five generations of his family has farmed for over a century, the themes at the heart of the songs are universally relatable. For instance, many people have had the same fantasy captured in “Cowboys Were Kings” of somehow escaping fast-paced modern life and waking up in a ‘tumbleweed town’ or, as on the powerful “Ghosts,” been in their favourite bar and had the full weight of its history, and the people who used to drink there, suddenly come to light.