''Five Days in July'' is the fifth studio album by Canadian

country-rock Country rock is a music genre that fuses rock and country. It was developed by rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal sty ...

band

Blue Rodeo Blue Rodeo is a Canadian rock band formed in 1984 in Toronto, Ontario. They have released 16 full-length studio albums, four live recordings, one greatest hits album, and two video/DVDs, along with multiple solo albums, side projects, and colla ...

. It was released by

WEA The Wea were a Miami–Illinois-speaking Native American tribe originally located in western Indiana. Historically, they were described as being either closely related to the Miami tribe or a sub-tribe of Miami. Today, the descendants of th ...

on October 26, 1993, in Canada and

Discovery Records Discovery Records was a United States–based record company and label known for its recordings of jazz music. Discovery was founded in 1948 by jazz fan and promoter Albert Marx; it was headquartered in Hollywood, California. The record label wou ...

on September 27, 1994, in the United States. It is the band's first album to be released through WEA. The band's most commercially successful album, it has been certified six times

platinum Platinum is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a density, dense, malleable, ductility, ductile, highly unreactive, precious metal, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name origina ...

as of 2008. The album was recorded on singer/guitarist

Greg Keelor James Gregory Keelor, (born Francis McIntyre; August 29, 1954) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and musician. He is best known as a member of the band Blue Rodeo, where he shares song writing and vocal duties with Jim Cuddy. Keelor has also rele ...

's farm in

Southern Ontario Southern Ontario is a Region, primary region of the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. It is the most densely populated and southernmost region in Canada, with approximately 13.5 million people, approximately 36% o ...

in July 1993. While the band originally intended for the recordings to serve only as demos, they found that the songs had a warmth and spontaneity that warranted releasing the collection as an album. Guest musicians on the album include

Sarah McLachlan Sarah Ann McLachlan (born January 28, 1968) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. As of 2015, she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is ''Surfacing (album), Surfacing'' (1997), for which she won two G ...

Colin Linden Colin Kendall Linden (born 16 April 1960) is a Canadian guitarist, songwriter and record producer. Linden plays acoustic and electric guitar, specializing in slide guitar, country blues, and ragtime fingerpicking, who frequently collaborates wi ...

and Anne Bourne. This album was keyboardist James Gray's first album with the band. The album is supposed to be a tribute to the ''

Harvest Harvesting is the process of collecting plants, animals, or fish (as well as fungi) as food, especially the process of gathering mature crops, and "the harvest" also refers to the collected crops. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulses fo ...

''-era

Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, forming the folk rock group Buffalo Springfield. Since the begi ...

sound. "5 Days in May", "Hasn't Hit Me Yet" and "Bad Timing" were notable hit singles for the band.

Track listing

Personnel

Blue Rodeo *

Jim Cuddy James Gordon Cuddy, (born December 2, 1955) is a Canadian singer-songwriter primarily associated with the band Blue Rodeo. Early life and education Cuddy was born in Toronto, Ontario. His mother Jean Cuddy was an English teacher at Monarch P ...

– vocals, guitar, mandolin, harmonica *Kim Deschamps – pedal & lap steel, mandolin, banjo *Bazil Donovan – bass *James Gray – keyboards, accordion *

– vocals, guitar *Glenn Milchem – drums Additional performers *

– vocals ("What Is This Love", "Dark Angel", and "Know Where You Go/Tell Me Your Dream"), piano ("Dark Angel", and "Tell Me Your Dream") *Anne Bourne – cello ("What Is This Love", and "English Bay"), vocals ("Cynthia") *

– guitar ("Know Where You Go") *Caroline Richardson – chimes,

rainstick A rainstick is a long, hollow tube of bamboo or dried cactus that is partially flooded with small pebbles, rice, dried beans, or other hard granular matter. The inside surface of the tube has small pins or thorns arranged helically. When the st ...

Production *Blue Rodeo – production *Doug McClement – recording *Peter Hamilton – recording *

John Whynot John Whynot (born April 4, 1959) is a Canadian musician, producer, engineer, film score mixer and composer. Originally based in Toronto, since 1989 he has resided in Los Angeles. He has worked with a wide variety of artists including Bruce Cockb ...

– mix engineering *John Rodd – mix engineering assistance *

Greg Calbi Gregory Calbi (born April 3, 1949) is an American mastering engineer at Sterling Sound, New Jersey. Biography Greg Calbi was born on April 3, 1949, in Yonkers, New York, and raised in Bayside, Queens, New York. He graduated in 1966 from Bishop ...

– mastering

Track trivia

*Singer/guitarist

has said that "5 Days in May" was inspired by his

sound engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a sound recording, recording or a Concert, live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization (audio), equalization, Dynamic range ...

's practice of writing his wife's name in the sand whenever he finds himself on a beach. Cuddy noticed the engineer doing so while the band was on tour in

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, and was inspired to write lyrics combining this story with the story of how Cuddy met his own wife.

30th Anniversary Reiussue & Performances

The album was reissued on Vinyl for its 30th Anniversary on October 26, 2023. The group also performed numerous two-set shows performing the album in its entirety to commemorate the anniversary.

Chart performance

Certifications

References

{{Authority control 1993 albums Blue Rodeo albums