Vancouver’s Reid Jamieson – a vocal powerhouse whose music has been hailed by the Globe & Mail as “gorgeously sun-struck acoustic soul” – releases his new single “Blue Jeans” today via Reid Jamieson Music. Self-produced and written by Reid Jamieson and his longtime songwriting partner and wife, Carolyn Victoria Mill, “Blue Jeans” represents a rare co-write for the duo, joining forces with American folk artist Johnny Irion (US Elevator, Sarah Lee Guthrie).
The track is a lush, groove-driven slow-build that arrives as an anthem of solidarity for anyone who has carried a long and wearying load. The duo describes “Blue Jeans” as a musical prescription for post-pandemic depression and a song that speaks to the broader collective weight many have been carrying since the world shifted beneath everyone’s feet. From the lockdown to divisive politics, from war to more personal struggles, many have been down so long, must have cried the blues right out of our collective jeans. “Sometimes you don’t need solutions,” they say. “You just need to know that you are not alone.”
Known as Reid Jamieson & CVM, this creative couple have spent two decades building one of Canada’s most distinctive independent catalogues. Winners of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and first-place finishers in the Vancouver Folk Festival’s Pickin’ a Folk Star competition, the pair are celebrated for their uncanny vocal harmonies, swapping lead vocals with ease, and an ability to render big human themes in deceptively intimate arrangements. The late CBC Vinyl Cafe host Stuart McLean, on whose shoe Reid frequently performed, once said of him “He stole the show” and “blew me away.” Reid has also recorded alongside Cowboy Junkies and performed and recorded with Mary Margaret O’Hara and members of Blue Rodeo and Be Good Tanyas.
It all started with a chance meeting of US Elevator’s Johnny Irion (with his then wife Sarah Lee Guthrie) at the Vancouver Folk Festival in 2013, and a shared love of 60s folk rock and the rich harmonic traditions of that era. A remarkable songwriter in his own right, Johnny has worked alongside Pete Seeger, Jeff Bridges, and Wilco, as well as appearing in Twin Peak. (the cat gets around!) Some time ago now, Johnny sent the duo a small melody fragment and a single, irresistible line: “Must have cried the blues right out of my jeans.” Reid fleshed out the tune, CVM shaped the lyrics, and together they built something that aches with recognition.
And yet the song tilts always toward the light, toward the comfort of knowing one is not alone in our long-term suffering. A long time in the making, now felt like the right time to address their mental health in song. The result is a recording that feels timeless: lush vocals riding a driving groove, deceptively upbeat considering the lyrical content. Reid and CVM produced the song in their home studio with the same intimacy and rigour that has defined their catalogue across more than two decades.
The single arrives as the duo enters one of its most creatively fertile periods. Their acclaimed original album Me Daza — recorded in Ireland with producer Kieran Kennedy and featuring the posthumous vocals of Corkonian legend Fergus O’Farrell — drew praise from Folk Roots Radio as “brilliant” and “the best thing Reid has done in his career so far.” Following up on the 2023 launch of their folk opera The Pigeon & The Dove, a genre- defying piece about pigeons and the causes of housing insecurity, which won the prestigious Social Impact Award at the Vancouver Fringe Festival, they are currently deep into recording an album of the original songs from The Pigeon & The Dove, inspired by the many roads one can take to end up on the street (slated for release in late 2026). Having had “just about enough of being Canada’s Best Kept Secret,” as they say with characteristic wit, the dynamic duo remains cautiously optimistic about everything that comes next.
Music, as Reid Jamieson & CVM have long understood, is medicine for the mind – safe, affordable, no side effects. This is what it sounds like when two of Canada’s finest songbirds decide to sing the blues back out of their collective jeans and invite the world to sing along.
Thanks kindly for the digital ink! means the world to us.