Podcast appearances and mentions of grant stovel

Looking back on 30 years of Captain Tractor's hugely successful, beloved classic album East of Edson, practically everything about it seems unlikely. They came together as a bunch of theatre and music school kids, and became known all over Canada. With the release of that record, the band also hit upon a signature song that remains a buzz track to this day. Enjoy their chat with CKUA's Grant Stovel in this episode of the Hidden Track Podcast.  Learn more about Hidden Track at ckua.com/hiddentrack. CREDITS Host: Grant Stovel Associate Producer: Scott Zielsdorf Executive Producer: Arianne Smith-Piquette Senior Producer: Jasmine Vickaryous Special thanks to the CKUA Events & Marketing Teams, and Brendan Cross for recording this conversation. The Hidden Track Podcast is a CKUA production made possible by the generosity of our donors. Thank you for your support! 

Kaia Kater has learned her craft through the influence of a diverse group of musical heroes, ranging from Herbie Hancock to Rhiannon Giddens. She recently turned her lens simultaneously inward and outward, to confront difficult truths and injustices – personally, historically, societally, and made them into album titled Strange Medicine. CKUA's Grant Stovel caught up with Kaia shortly after the album's release, as she was entering the summertime festival season. And she's very much a child of the Western Canadian folk festival experience.   Host: Grant Stovel | Producer: Scott Zielsdorf | Graphics: Craig Taffs | Music: Doug Hoyer The Hidden Track podcast is a CKUA production and made possible by the generosity of our donors. Thank you for your support! Subscribe to the Hidden Track podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

A couple of seasons back, Hidden Track released a big Cadence Weapon special. We spoke with Rollie Pemberton (Cadence Weapon) himself, along with some key family, friends and collaborators. A whole lot has happened for Cadence Weapon since that episode's release. So, we felt it was time to catch-up during his brief visit back to Edmonton during the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.   It's certainly been an exciting two years for Cadence Weapon! The major headline being that, in 2022, he won the Polaris Music Prize, the biggest and most illustrious music award there is in Canada! And, that same year, he released his greatly-acclaimed memoir, Bedroom Rapper. Jumping forward to 2024, he's recently put out an incredible new record, ROLLERCOASTER.   Another noteworthy development brought Cadence Weapon back home to Edmonton somewhat unexpectedly. In early June 2024, the hockey team he's been cheering for all his life made a storybook run, from the bottom of the National Hockey League standings at the start of the season, all the way to the Stanley Cup Championship.  Seized by sudden inspiration, Cadence Weapon created a new version of his anthem for Edmonton Oilers' sensation star centre and captain, Connor McDavid. Cadence Weapon released the first version in 2017 at the beginning of McDavid's NHL career, and he felt called to update it for this momentous occasion.  Ever the hometown man, Cadence Weapon made time during his Edmonton playoff visit to chat with CKUA's Grant Stovel for this episode of Hidden Track Stories. Here's our first in-person visit in many a long year with Cadence Weapon, who was very much in championship form.  CREDITS Host: Grant Stovel | Producer: Scott Zielsdorf | Graphics: Craig Taffs | Music: Doug Hoyer  Special thanks to Cadence Weapon for allowing us to include the opening instrumental to My Computer in this episode of Hidden Track.   The Hidden Track Podcast is made possible by the generosity of CKUA's donour community. Thank you for your support! 

It's been an amazing Season 4 here at Hidden Track. We've had visits with an astounding array of inspired artists, ranging from local heroes to global greats; from a reigning Polaris Prize winner to a newly minted Grammy Award winner; from hip-hop to hardcore punk to homespun folk. It's been such a wild 2023! So wild, in fact, that we felt the need to do a special episode to wrap up the season.   Given the daunting task of summarizing such an incredible season, Grant decided to call in a little help! For this year-end episode, Grant Stovel is joined by Hidden Track producer Scott Zielsdorf to help share some great stories and songs from amongst this season's 21 episodes.   In particular, this collection of magical moments zeroes in on the idea of connecting to something larger through music -- whether that's connecting with family and friends, with community, with humanity at large, connecting with your own inner sense of humanity, even connecting with your true artistic self. That yearning to connect is often the catalyst that compels musicians to create, to express, to be part of something.   Music can be a vector for connection in amazing ways -- as we hear in this episode! With memorable stories and songs from the likes of William Prince, Tanika Charles, Arlo Maverick, Wendy McNeill, Dan Mangan, F*cked Up, Young Fathers, Aysanabee, Andy Shauf, Kid Koala & Leilani, Alex Cuba, and July Talk.   Thank you for being with us in 2023! And we thank all of our guests for being so generous with their time and their hearts. All the best for 2024, and we can't wait to share Hidden Track Season 5 with you!    Host: Grant Stovel | Producer: Scott Zielsdorf | Music: Doug Hoyer | Graphics: Shaun Friesen   The Hidden Track Podcast is made possible by the generous contributions of our donors. Thank you for your support!  

Arlo Maverick seems to be on a mission to ensure that Edmonton takes its place as a destination to be reckoned with on the hip-hop map. An award-winning artist, Arlo is a well-loved pillar of the hip-hop community here in Alberta. He's also toured all the way to the other side of the world and back, winning himself global fans and forging a wide network of collaborators.  More recently, he's achieved renown as a documentary filmmaker and a chronicler of local hip-hop culture and history. Arlo Maverick is truly solidifying himself as an Edmonton hip-hop ambassador to the world.  Now, a library might seem like a funny place for a hip-hop show, but it makes all the sense in the world. For thing, CKUA's legendary music library is the home to music of all kinds, including a vast trove of music by Alberta artists. Plus, artists don't come much more studied about the history and culture of Alberta music than Arlo Maverick. And, as we hear in this episode, his eureka moment as a hip-hop creator happened in church! So maybe a library isn't too much of a stretch.  Just ahead of the release of his new album, Blue Collar, Arlo Maverick and his wildly talented six-piece band set up in CKUA's music library for the first in what we hope will be a series of live music events, featuring a small, select audience of CKUA supporters, staffers, and community members. They rocked our library lunch hour with a superb set, and later on, Arlo also shared generously of his own life story in a wide-ranging and insightful interview with CKUA's Grant Stovel.  The Hidden Track podcast is produced by CKUA Radio and made possible by the generosity of CKUA's donors.  Host: Grant Stovel | Producer: Scott Zielsdorf | Graphics: Shaun Friesen | Music: Doug Hoyer Audio engineering for this live studio session was provided by Duke Paetz, with sound assistance from Scott Zielsdorf. 

It's a testament to the connection and chemistry this band have built together over more than twenty years that they were able to pull off a unique feat of artistic daring for their latest album, 2023's much-acclaimed One Day. Each band member, on their own, composing and recording an entire album's worth of instrumental parts in a 24-hour span, then passing it down the line to the next band member, for them to add their own inspired contributions to the brew.   For a band that's been known to spend literally years crafting elaborate, sprawling, world-building concept records, this is perhaps the most radical and adventurous idea they've ever undertaken. The resulting album is heartfelt, brilliant, and full of the musical imagination and raw emotional power that's made F*cked Up one of the most beloved bands in hardcore punk rock over the past two decades.   As a band, they go all the way back to when these musicians were not much more than kids, growing up in turn-of-the-century Toronto, and falling in love with the punk scene. F*cked Up are now, as then: singer Damian Abraham, bass player Sandy Miranda, drummer Jonah Falco, guitarist Mike Haliechuk and fellow founding member and touring guitarist, Josh Zucker. The artistic challenge on their new album is just as epic as ever, but they've gone from macro to micro. For this one, their ever-present big, bold artistic scope is more extreme close-up, rather than wide-angle lens. They're a band that loves a good challenge, and they continue to challenge themselves to find innovative paths toward artistic evolution and reinvention, over and over again. On the Alberta leg of their album release tour earlier in 2023, bass player Sandy Miranda and lead singer Damian Abraham stopped by CKUA studios to share a characteristically hilarious and candid conversation with Grant Stovel. On this episode of the Hidden Track Podcast, we hear some of the band's stranger-than-fiction stories and what it was like trying to distill their entire artistic essence into One Day.  Producer: Scott Zielsdorf | Host: Grant Stovel | Graphics: Shaun Friesen | Music: Doug Hoyer 

This year marks the silver anniversary of the barn-storming acoustic country music juggernaut known as Old Crow Medicine Show. They're a group that traces their roots to busking all across Canada and the United States. Since then, Old Crow Medicine Show has gained commercial success with their distinctively contemporary spin on old-school traditions. The band's song “Wagon Wheel” became certified Platinum in 2013, and is one of the best-known and most oft-covered roots music songs of this century. Old Crow Medicine Show's 25th anniversary is being suitably celebrated in Summer 2023 with the release of the band's 10th studio album, Jubilee.  Founding member Ketch Secor has remained a constant of the band through the last 25 years, and remains the band's lead singer, songwriter and fiddle player. In his early childhood years, Ketch's parents moved him around the country, opening up a series of schools in many different pockets of the United States. It awoke in him a lifelong love of travelling, and of learning. As a teen, he earned himself a scholarship to an illustrious prep school in New England - which is where he first got serious about old-time string band music. Ketch Secor and three other members of Old Crow Medicine Show dropped by CKUA's Edmonton studios just ahead of their headlining set at the 2023 Edmonton Folk Music Festival. They gathered around a single vintage microphone to share live renditions of two songs from Jubilee. Additionally, Ketch joins CKUA's Grant Stovel for an in-depth conversation that's just as wide-ranging, authentic, and full of delightful surprises as the band's music. The Hidden Track Podcast is produced by CKUA Radio and made possible by the generous contributions of our donors. Thank you for your support!  Producer: Scott Zielsdorf | Host: Grant Stovel | Graphics: Shaun Friesen | Music: Doug Hoyer  Session Engineer: Brendan Cross

CKUA's Hidden Track Podcast returns for Season 4!    Kicking things off in 2023 is (currently) Manitoba-based folk rock duo Whitehorse! Composed of husband-and-wife duo Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland, Whitehorse's sound spans from folk/americana to groove-driven pop rock. Doucet and McClelland have always been talented musicians, and both had successful solo careers before joining forces as Whitehorse.    Released on January 13, 2023, the duo's eighth studio album, "I'm Not Crying, You're Crying", marks a tonal shift to the melancholic sounds of hurtin' classic country. Spurred on by feelings of loneliness and isolation due to the pandemic, I'm Not Crying, You're Crying has been described as a "breakup album with the world." Songs like If The Loneliness Don't Kill Me and 6 Feet Away serve as a cry for human connection, written during a time when those connections were increasingly hard to find.    In our first episode of Hidden Track Season 4, "Whitehorse | Breaking Up With Society", Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland join CKUA's Grant Stovel from their Manitoba home to discuss the inspirations behind their latest album, how it feels to be touring again, the duo's musical origins (including a story of 14-year-old Luke's blues band) and so much more!

Newfoundland-based musicians Catherine Allan and Andrew James O'Brien are the couple behind Juno-nominated band Fortunate Ones. The band's latest album, That Was You and Me, released early in June of 2022. Fortunate Ones recently embarked on a tour alongside fellow East Coast artists, The Once and Old Man Luedecke. That tour, dubbed the Anchors Up! Tour finds the band performing shows in Alberta in late November 2022.   The duo behind this incredible folk outlet took time out of their busy tour schedule to chat with Hidden Track host Grant Stovel for a look at their personal and artistic journeys thus far. Andrew and Catherine tell us about how the pandemic caused them to look deep within themselves (and each other) in a whole new way creatively, how the songs on this new record took shape during a secluded summer in a seaside clapboard house, the great Newfoundland tradition of songcraft, staying grounded by running marathons and doing yoga, and the excitement of touring in a bus for the first time ever. 

Spoon, a critically acclaimed rock band from Austin, Texas, consists of front man Britt Daniel, drummer Jim Eno, Ben Trokan on bass, and guitarists (as well as keyboardists) Alex Fischel and Gerard Larios. Critics have often described the band's musical style as “art rock” or “experimental rock.”  Formed by Daniel and Eno in 1993, the band has released ten albums and undergone quite a few roster changes over the years. These days, Britt Daniel and Jim Eno remain the only founding members, with other current members having joined in the late 2010s. The band's latest album is Lucifer on the Sofa, and Spoon is currently on a North American tour, with a show in Edmonton and an appearance at Calgary FolkFest.  Ever the music fans, the band is heavily influenced by a wide range of musicians and popular bands from their formative years, including rock legends like The Beatles. In this episode of CKUA's Hidden Track Podcast, Spoon members Britt and Alex join Grant Stovel to discuss their love of music, the inspirations behind their latest album, and how radio played a huge role in their musical development. 

She's one of the biggest stars in the world of blues, a champion for (and of) guitar women everywhere, and she happens to be a Canadian. Sue Foley is in the spotlight for the April episode of CKUA's Hidden Track podcast. Sue reflects on her three-decade long career, heroes like trailblazing guitar heroes Memphis Minnie and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, her Guitar Woman research project, becoming a college professor by day and guitar slinger by night, her acclaimed latest album Pinky's Blues (named after her iconic pink paisley guitar), and lots more.

They were alt-country before alt-country. By the time that became a buzz term in the mid-‘90s, Jr. Gone Wild had a legendary career, and called it a day. Over 25 years later, the Alberta music scene remains imprinted by the band's work. The cow-punk trailblazers are back with their first album in 25 years, ‘Still Got The Jacket'. On this episode, Grant Stovel talks with Corb Lund, Stony Plain founder Holger Petersen, and Jr. Gone Wild's Mike McDonald about the band's incredible legacy and exciting future.

If Otis Redding were alive, he'd be turning eighty this month. Instead, the world lost him at the age of 26. Redding revolutionized popular music, created a lasting legacy, and was the personification of soul. This episode of Hidden Track traces his journey, from modest roots to chart-topping hits, and we wonder what might have been. On this episode, Jonathan Gould, author of Otis Redding: An Unfinished Life joins host Grant Stovel to explore the fascinating story of Otis Redding's life and career. 

Kat Danser's chance encounter with Al Green in a parking lot in Memphis was part of an experience that put her on a path to a place in her life that she could never even have dreamt of when she was growing up on a farm in rural Saskatchewan. It’s a voyage of discovery that’s involved travelling thousands of miles, while making an inward journey that led her to become Canada’s Queen of the Swamp Blues. On the eve of her induction into the Edmonton Blues Hall of Fame, Grant Stovel talks to the musician and ethnomusicologist about her journey into music at 33, and her Ph. D studies in blues and roots music of the American south.   

It's not everyday you get to chat with a music legend, cultural force, and intergenerational icon. This week on Hidden Track, Grant Stovel talks to folk music giant Judy Collins. Her inspired work as a song stylist helped launch to fame songwriters like Leonard Cohen, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, and Ian Tyson. We'll hear about those relationships, as well as the struggles and demons that have clawed at her along the way. Sixty years into her career, Collins has emerged as a truly self-actualized artist who is just hitting her professional stride. 

She skyrocketed to fame with a song that didn't sound like anything anyone had ever heard before. It was gentle yet tense, lurid yet mysterious. "Ode to Billie Joe" was driven by Bobbie Gentry's trademark acoustic guitar groove, and that low Mississippi drawl that seemed like it was murmuring secrets in your ear. On this episode, Grant Stovel explores the captivating legacy of an artist who has one of most sensational success stories in all of popular music, and also one of its most fascinating and enigmatic disappearing acts. Tara Murtha, author of Bobbie Gentry's 'Ode to Billie Joe' is Grant's guest on this week's Hidden Track.  

This week, Leslie Feist talks to Grant Stovel about how a conscious shift in perspective guided the approach to her latest album, Pleasure. She’ll tell us about the “dark nights of the soul” that led her to finding a better work-life balance. Plus, Leslie reflects on her tributes to Leonard Cohen, Gord Downie, and the milestone anniversary of her appearance on Sesame Street.

On our debut episode, Grant Stovel welcomes musician Jeremy Dutcher. The classically trained operatic tenor and composer spent most of his 20's quietly crafting his stunning debut album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa. The album blends his training in opera, and his contemporary musical sensibility, and features post-classical rearrangements of Wolastoq First Nation traditional music. The work recently took home Canada's top musical honour, the Polaris Music Prize, this past September.  In this wide-ranging discussion, Jeremy talks about his musical upbringing, discovering the notable absence of classical music that reflects indigeneity, and uncovering the archival recordings that became foundational to his debut album.  The podcast features three selections from the album: "Mehcinut", "Oqiton", and "Eqpahak".    

CKUA morning announcer Grant Stovel was feeling worldly when selecting this Song of the Week. Here it is, "A Bellavista" by the Marco Claveria Project, a tune that gets lodged in Grant's head "for weeks at a time."

This week's Capital City Records host - CKUA's very own morning announcer Grant Stovel. Giving Grant a musical database the size of Capital City Records and telling him to pick out just one song is no easy task, but he did it. Here he is presenting "Eliminate the Toxins" from Mark Davis' new album of the same name. 

This week on TransCanada Music West, host Grant Stovel welcomes Alberta jazz outfit Hutchinson Andrew Trio to CKUA’s performance space. The acoustic piano trio features bassist Kodi Hutchinson, pianist Chris Andrew, and drummer Karl Schwonik. They’ve been a staple of the Alberta jazz scene for over a decade, and as of late, have been touring on the strength of their 2013 album Prairie Modern. This week on the show, they give us a live preview of music from their forthcoming fall 2015 release.

High River, Alberta singer-songwriter Karla Adolphe joins TransCanada Music West host Grant Stovel in CKUA's Studio A. Karla performs songs from her latest album, Honeycomb Tombs, and shares stories about what inspires her songs.