Saskatchewan Roughriders could have been Grey Cup contenders this year but they blew it big time last weekend in Montreal.

"I don't want to talk about it," groans Regina-born Rider fan Colin James. "Did you see that game? I couldn't believe how badly we played. I mean for the whole first half we were not even there. That was pitiful - they should have put on Nealon Greene - they needed a spark and that might have done it."

With the Riders out of the picture James has no problem rooting for his second favourite team, the B.C. Lions, to go all the way. His band will help kick off Grey Cup festivities next Thursday night with a show at the Commodore Ballroom.

As a veteran player James is very aware of what it takes to survive as a musician. His new album Limelight tackles the question of career longevity head on by shifting the focus of his music. He doesn't abandon the blues entirely but he slips in other musical colours to keep things fresh and moving forward.

"I seem to make a record about every two years and usually it just kind of reflects where your head's at over those two years. I think overall you don't sit down and think about it. In some ways it's beyond your control - what it is is what it is."

There's a renewed emphasis on horns this time around which allows James to seamlessly mix tunes from different genres. "I love all kinds of music that has horns from the Little Big Band sound to Stax and all that stuff."

He co-produced the new album with his old buddy Colin Linden in Los Angeles and Vancouver. "I hadn't worked with Colin in quite a long time," he says. "We'd written together down in Nashville last year a couple of times but National Steel was the last time we'd spent any time in the studio together."

Linden had just finished working with Jim Keltner on another recording and invited the drummer, who has appeared on so many legendary records, to play on the James sessions. "He said 'Yea' - it was that simple," says James. "You do a Google search on the guy and you realize he's played on a billion records - with the Stones, Joe Cocker, George Harrison, John Lennon's solo records, every Ry Cooder record to this day. I don't think I've ever played with a drummer who was more aware of playing his drums as an instrument and not just keeping the beat."

Other musicians on the L.A. sessions included bassist Hutch Hutchinson and Canadian keyboard player Richard Bell. In all James spent two weeks in California with the first week mainly devoted to preproduction and going over songs with Linden. "Back in the old days we'd all go down there for two months to make a record and hang out forever. People tend to make records a little quicker now. Budgets aren't what they used to be so you don't sit and lollygag for a long time."

One of the cover songs they chose to work on in L.A., 'Watching the River Flow', was originally recorded by Bob Dylan back in 1970 with Leon Russell and the omnipresent Jim Keltner sitting in on drums. But James says rerecording the song with Keltner was a mere coincidence. "That was one of those things where we all went back into the control room and he just haphazardly went 'Yea when we cut that so and so . . .' He's just been on so many records."

They did about half the album in L.A. before returning to Vancouver to finish the rest at Bryan Adam's Warehouse Studio. Limelight's 14 tracks feature 10 new tunes from James in collaboration with other songwriters. Several were written with North Vancouver's Craig Northey including the opener 'Better Way to Heaven' and the first single 'Far Away Like a Radio'.

A lot of Limelight was done live off the floor with very few overdubs. "It wasn't a planned thing," says James. "It's just that often there's an emotional level you get to on the recording and you're loathe to go in there and start picking it apart. Unless there's a really horrible flat note and then I'll go in and fix it. My last few recordings have been a lot like that - there's not a lot of going back. I'm pretty picky - I don't mind having character but I draw a line at flat. It was a very natural recording though and in the case of the Vancouver recording half the time we'd finish a take and the musicians would go, 'OK, let's do it,' and Colin would say, 'We just did.'"

Along with the Dylan track James covers a Nick Lowe tune (When I Write the Book) as well as two from Van Morrison (It Fills You Up and Into the Mystic). "I think over the years I've become a bigger and bigger fan of Van Morrison. I went and saw him about two years ago and he does stuff from his old book but he's still creating great new music as well. He's become 'the new bluesman' like John Lee Hooker and the only way he did that was through perseverance and not leaving it at a 10-year career. When I saw how he put his show together from blues and old hits I thought, 'That's a good life.' If I can come anywhere near having a career that ends up being that long and still put out new music I'd like to do something like that."

James' band at the Commodore (Thursday, Nov. 24) will include Craig Northey (guitar), Doug Elliott (bass), Geoff Hicks (of She Stole My Beer and the Paperboys, drums), Simon Kendall (keys), Terry Townson (trumpet) and Steve Hilliam (saxophone). The two horn players are an integral part of where James wants his music to go. Townson, new to the Vancouver scene, is a Nashville veteran who is best known for his stellar work with Delbert McClinton. Hilliam has played with James before and was part of both Little Big Band records. "We went over to Europe this summer with the two-piece horn section and it allows me to thread everything together. I think at this point in my life I'm trying to bring it all together and make sense out of a career's worth of work."