101 FASCINATING CANADIAN MUSIC FACTS

Texas — a call comes from your manager telling you one of Hollywood’s biggest stars wants to sing with you. The actress is Meryl Streep, and this is how Blue Rodeo’s brush with Hollywood happened.

Streep was filming the dark comedy She-Devil in New York City and commuting into the Big Apple every day from Connecticut. Her limo driver kept playing Blue Rodeo’s debut album, Outskirts, and the three-time Oscar winner fell in love with it. At the end of the week, Streep’s driver handed her a copy of Outskirts he had bought the actress as a parting gift.

Flash ahead to Streep’s next project, Postcards from the Edge — a semi-autobiographical screenplay written by Carrie Fisher and directed by Mike Nichols (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Working Girl , The Birdcage). Nichols gave Streep a stack of cassettes to listen to and pick a band to feature in the film. Among them was Blue Rodeo’s sophomore record, Diamond Mine. Streep remembered the band and, without listening to any of the other tapes, said, “Get these guys!”

Blue Rodeo were invited to audition at Toronto’s Diamond Club during the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Streep and Nichols did not have a movie at TIFF that year, so the media were left wondering why the pair were in town. After hearing the roots-rockers play, Nichols and Streep were sold. “See you in L.A.!” Streep said

DAVID M c PHERSON

as she left the Diamond; the boys in the band were stunned as the whole experience still felt surreal. The next thing they knew, the band was on a movie set in Burbank, California, with Streep, Shirley MacLaine, and Dennis Quaid. Blue Rodeo accompanied Streep as her wedding band in Postcards from the Edge. They played the Shel Silverstein–penned “I’m Checkin’ Out,” which was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Original Song category in 1990 and performed by Reba McEntire at the Oscar ceremonies the following year.