When Jim Cuddy plays the John Labatt Centre with his own band tomorrow night, he'll be doing something that helps keep Blue Rodeo a force.

The Jim Cuddy Band is on the bill when U.S. rocker Sheryl Crow headlines at the downtown London arena. New York's Matt White opens.

Such solo gigs for Cuddy or other members of the legendary Canadian roots rockers are not an issue for Blue Rodeo, Cuddy says.

"I think it's a great thing for a band," the singer, guitarist and songwriter has said. "You have to at some point go through the self-consciousness of people working outside the band, and the threat that poses to a band. Luckily we've been through that years ago."

It doesn't hurt the team cause that the Jim Cuddy Band often includes familiar faces from the Blue Rodeo family, including Cuddy, bass player Bazil Donovan and keyboard player Bob Packwood.

Joining them are such friends of the Rodeo family as guitarist Colin Cripps, fiddle player Anne Lindsay and drummer Joel Anderson.

Blue Rodeo generally manages to play London once or twice a year. The Toronto band has kept that pattern in 2008, with a gig at the arena in February and then again with a fundraising show at Regina Mundi College in June.

Cuddy gigs are much rarer. So are Cuddy solo discs.

While Blue Rodeo has cleared the 10-album mark, Cuddy has two on his own. The most recent is 2006's The Light That Guides You Home.

He was once here for a fundraiser for the London Beefeaters football club. That gave Cuddy a chance to reflect on his high school days in Toronto, when he was a skinny quarterback dodging much bigger defenders.

Playing with his own band does give Cuddy the opportunity to cover songs by such Blue Rodeo influences as George Jones and Bruce Springsteen.

Cuddy arrives in London just a week after being a hit -- with his music and donation -- at a benefit for the Sens Foundation, the charity arm of the NHL's Ottawa Senators.

Earlier this month, Cuddy presented two donations for Roger's House -- $26,465 on behalf of Blue Rodeo Productions and $10,000 donated by Cuddy personally.

Roger's House honours the legacy and charitable endeavours of the late NHL coach Roger Neilson.

Co-frontmen Cuddy and Greg Keelor started playing guitar as teenagers in the 1970s and formed several punk bands that eventually, after a short attempt to break into New York, mutated and morphed into the country-infused Blue Rodeo in 1984.