Singer/songwriter guitarist Jim Cuddy, who with Greg Keelor forms the backbone of the Toronto quintet Blue Rodeo, laughs as he recalls how the band's collaboration with producer Pete Anderson began. "When we first went into the studio, I asked him what he thought of our last album, Diamond Mine. And he said, 'Man, I tried, but I just couldn't get through it!'" The creative dialogue between two somewhat different approaches - Anderson's and that of a group who grew from being Queen Street's favorite bar band to one of the nation's best-selling acts - has proven to be a fruitful one indeed. Recorded in the spring of 1990, Casino is the follow-up to two multi-award-winning, double-platinum successes - 1987's dark-horse favorite Outskirts and 1988's Diamond Mine. Choosing Anderson, who is well known for his work with Dwight Yoakam, Michelle Shocked and others, was a simple process. Says Cuddy, "We wanted to make this record with somebody who really knew how to record guitars, and how to make a record that had the best qualities of the '60s and '70s. We listened to the records that we liked - Neil Young, the Beatles - and tried to pick out of them some kind of direction. There's an enormous effect that these songs have on you from the very first second you hear them. The singing is so 'in your face', the guitars are really loud - these were the production values we were after. The next step was putting a wish list of producers together, and we came up with Pete." Casino was rec