Jim Cuddy salutes Toronto on new album

On the title track of his new solo album, Skyscraper Soul, Jim Cuddy croons about a city that "can bring you down" but one which he cannot leave because underneath it, "there's a heart beating."

The amiable Blue Rodeo frontman says the reflective tune is largely an ode to his hometown of Toronto, which he thinks is sometimes misunderstood.

"It sort of came about becausefirst of all, I think I've taken umbrage in the last year (at how) so many people slag Toronto," the singer-songwriter said in a recent interview.

"For years and years and years it never bothered me and I never even thought about it. I don't know why in the last year I've gotten kind of prickly about it," the jeans-clad country-rocker mused while sitting on a couch at Blue Rodeo's Woodshed Studio, where the group's many Juno Awards are on display atop an armoire.

"I think that Toronto represents the beauty of many cities around the worldthat its beauty isn't always apparent upon first viewing. You come to Toronto and you may feel like it's a cold, concrete place and after you're here awhileyou realize that there's an incredible amount of energy in this city and that it's a very easy place to do creative things because there are so many people to bump into, to bounce ideas off of."

Toronto better for band than New York

Cuddy said the track is also a nod to his early struggles in New York, where he and fellow Blue Rodeo singer-songwriter Greg Keelor lived in the early 1980s.

The two tried to make it as musicians there, supplementing their paltry income by serving tables, but gave up after three years.

"We realized at the end that it's a bad place to put together a band," said Cuddy, 55, noting musicians would suddenly drop out of the group because they were broke and had to move.

"It was just such a difficult place to keep life and limb together. We could never have done Blue Rodeo down there. It was coming back to Toronto, getting a little bit off the incredibly beaten track in New York, that helped us to have the time and the wherewithal to put together a decent band and play a lot."

The urban nature of Cuddy's third solo album, out Tuesday, is also felt in its sound, which has a lot more trumpet than what Cuddy normally works with.

"It changed the songs so that they became a little less rural, a little less country," said Cuddy, who recorded the album in January, May and June with his touring solo outfit, The Jim Cuddy Band (Colin Cripps, Bazil Donovan, Joel Anderson, Steve O'Connor and Anne Lindsay).

"I chose to write from the perspective of being here and looking out, as opposed to many times in my career I've chosen to write about being in the mountains or being free of the city."

Bryden Baird guests on the trumpet as well as flugel horn, glockenspiel and vibraphone. Other cameos include vocalist Melissa McClelland.

Family life comes through on album

Cuddy embarked on the 14-track project (12 of the tunes are also available on vinyl) after writing the funk-infused song Water's Running High for his actress-wife Rena Polley's short comedy film, Four Sisters.

Playing piano on the song is their 24-year-old son, Devin, who studied jazz at York University and noodled a bit on Cuddy's last solo album, 2006's The Light That Guides You Home.

Cuddy's family life also comes through on Regular Days, about a financially strapped couple on a road trip.

The story is reminiscent of the time he and Polley, with whom he also has two other children, drove around Florida early in their relationship, he said.

"We were so exhausted from our lives and she was asleep in the car and it sort of occurred to me then, and certainly upon reflection, that somehow this was going to be the template of our lives," said Cuddy, who has several tour dates lined up for the rest of the year and will embark on a cross-Canada tour with his band in the new year.

"That these weren't just wild days that we were having and then we were going to settle into a normal life. We were always going to have this very left-of-centre life, and that is certainly the way it's turned out."