Greg Keelor

2020 was certainly not a year in which Greg Keelor imagined he’d be making a new album – an album he would record live off the floor.

Keelor had a solo album, Share the Love, finished in early 2020. It was mastered and ready to manufacture, and he was scheduled to meet his record company for a marketing meeting when the world shut down. For months he laid low, like everyone else. Finally, he figured: fuck it. Everyone else is still releasing records, and it’s not like this is a Marvel movie. So he assembled a band, booked a community centre near his Kawartha farm, had everyone tested beforehand, and spent two days playing the new material live—physically distant, in a semi-circle, no headphones—while shooting a promotional film and rolling tape. It felt good—really good, in fact.

Then a funny thing happened. Listening back to the audio mixes, Keelor thought it was far superior to the finished studio record. There was a magic here. No surprise: for Keelor and likely everyone else, this was the longest period in their life when they’d gone without playing music with others. Everyone had been pent up. With only two rehearsals, they brought the material to life in ways Keelor couldn’t have imagined. Harmonious, in every way.

He soon made the decision: this should be the album. Leave the studio version on the shelf. Share the Love was reborn.