Canadian icon Alan Doyle shares his fascinating musical journey in this episode of the Hidden Track podcast. From his humble beginnings in Petty Harbour to performing on global stages, Doyle's narrative is filled with heartfelt reflections and vibrant storytelling. He discusses his evolution with Great Big Sea, his solo career, and his ventures into theatre and writing.  

He talks about his educational background, influences such as Ron Hynes, and his new introspective album, Welcome Home. Listen for an engaging tale of music, humility, and gratitude, and enjoy a bonus acoustic performance of "Hard Old Hands," live in CKUA's Studio A. 

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! 

The Hidden Track Podcast is a CKUA production made possible by the generosity of our donors. Thank you for your support!  Learn more about Hidden Track at ckua.com/hiddentrack.

Caity Gyorgy and Mark Limacher are a formidable musical duo known for their brilliance and creativity on and off stage. Caity, a two-time JUNO Award-winning singer and songwriter, and Mark, a versatile composer and pianist, share a unique bond that enhances their collaborative performances. Their ability to blend their talents creates an enchanting experience for audiences, whether they are performing music or engaging in conversation. 

Recently, they reunited in Alberta for holiday performances before heading to Japan for a series of shows at The Cotton Club.  

Their visit included a special session at CKUA, where they shared their inspired music and insights with fans. 

CREDITS

• Host: Grant Stovel
• Associate Producer: Scott Zielsdorf
• Executive Producer: Arianne Smith-Piquette
• Senior Producer: Jasmine Vickaryous
• Theme Music: Doug Hoyer

Mixing and mastering for this Hidden Track Session was provided by Brendan Cross.

Special thanks to the CKUA Events & Marketing Teams!

The Hidden Track Podcast is a CKUA production made possible by the generosity of our donors. Thank you for your support!  Learn more about Hidden Track at ckua.com/hiddentrack.

MOONRIIVR is a band known for creating lush, cinematic, and atmospheric music inspired by timeless classics, yet uniquely personal in style. Comprised of seasoned musicians Gavin Gardiner and "Champagne" James Robertson, the duo brings a wealth of experience from the Southern Ontario music scene, blending indie rock, folk, jazz, and country influences.

Their debut album, Vol. 1, and its follow-up, The Tascam Sessions, showcase their musical alchemy and innovative expression. We're treated to a sample of that magic in this Hidden Track Story, as the duo shares a bonus pair of live performances with us as part of this episode!

The Hidden Track podcast is a CKUA production made possible by the generosity of our donors. Thank you for your support!

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Host: Grant Stovel | Producer: Scott Zielsdorf | Graphics: Craig Taffs | Music: Doug Hoyer

After releasing a captivating debut single called "Dancing with Sue" in June of 2020, Wyatt C. Louis created a stir that saw them gain fans across Alberta, Canada, and beyond. 

But it would be nearly four years until Wyatt's debut full-length album was released. The album Chandler, released on May 27, 2024, shot straight to #1 on CKUA’s weekly Top 30 chart. 

Their songs are pensive, deeply felt, and slow burning, while their supple voice and guitar work express wonder and vulnerability. The candid solo performances that Wyatt shared with us in CKUA's Studio A are intimate and beautiful. 

This live session took place in December 2024 — just as CKUA's music library team had crunched the numbers and determined that Wyatt's album, Chandler, had become the most played on CKUA’s airwaves for the entire year. As a special bonus, we had the opportunity to surprise Wyatt with the joyful news that they were #1 for 2024! It's a moment of pure joy, alongside Wyatt's blissful music and conversation.  

The Hidden Track podcast is a CKUA production, made possible by the generosity of our donors. Thank you for your support!  

Host: Grant Stovel | Producer: Scott Zielsdorf | Graphics: Craig Taffs | Music: Doug Hoyer

Recording/Mastering for this Session provided by Brendan Cross.

We've got a live one here!  

This is a live session with the celebrated Canadian artist Tony D, who for decades has been known as an electrifying guitar talent, equally expressive in styles ranging from blues to swing to acid rock to flamenco! Tony has travelled the world playing music, and has a trophy case worth of awards; but somehow his new record Electric Delta is the first proper new Tony D solo offering of original material in a couple of decades! And the album release party for this long-awaited new record is what we hear in this highly celebratory live CKUA Hidden Track Session.  

Between his solo projects, the celebrated Canadian band MonkeyJunk, and plenty of other musical activities, he's toured everywhere from Memphis to Italy, and all across Canada! He's even performed in the northernmost continuously inhabited place in the world — Alert, Nunavut. 

Alberta has long been a kind of second home to Tony D; and these days he's actually a part-time resident of this part of the world, when he isn't on the road, as his partner and family live in the province.

In this final episode of Hidden Track Season 5, we hear the electrifying Tony D performing in front of a rapt audience at CKUA's Live Performance Space in Edmonton, joined by his longtime bass player Joe Hawkins, as well as two superb Edmonton-based musicians: keyboardist Rooster Davis and drummer Jamie Cooper.  

The sparks really fly between these four musicians and the audience, as they perform a diverse set of original material — a Tony D classic called "Argentinian Surf Tango", plus two standouts from the new album, "Highway 7" and the rousing opening salvo: a dynamic instrumental workout entitled "NAS". 

Host: Grant Stovel | Producer: Scott Zielsdorf | Graphics: Craig Taffs | Music: Doug Hoyer

Recording/Mastering for this session provided by Brendan Cross.

The Hidden Track podcast is a CKUA production, made possible by the generosity of our donors. Thank you for your support!  

When you consider that the Yukon's population density is estimated to be roughly 0.07 people per square kilometre, it's kind of amazing the cultural imprint that the territory has made — both in terms of Canadian and global culture!

The majestic, dramatic land made world-famous in classics ranging from The Cremation of Sam McGee to The Call of the Wild has long inspired artists of all kinds, and it’s truly become a haven for musical creatives. From the territory's living Indigenous musical traditions, to the fabled folk songs of the Klondike, to the incredible people making original music today ranging from bluegrass to hip-hop, the story of Yukon music is a vibrant, diverse, and ever-evolving one — as we hear in this episode, the thrilling conclusion of our first-ever Hidden Track two-parter! 

Just as in Part One of our Music Yukon/Hidden Track collab, we’re treated to some truly thrilling live performances by artists from that vast territory, and we get a sense of how the Yukon impacts their lives and art practices. 

While Edmonton, Alberta is sometimes referred to as the most northerly large city in the Americas, with metropolitan population of more than one million people, you've got to make a roughly 2,000 kilometre-long trip southeast to get from the Yukon's capital city of Whitehorse to Edmonton! So, it was a pretty big deal when a whole troop of Yukon musicians made the big trek down south to perform as part of the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival in August 2024. This was thanks to the support of Music Yukon and a really cool partnership with the Edmonton Fringe. 

While they were here, CKUA was lucky enough to host a whole bunch of them for Hidden Track sessions in our Studio A in Edmonton. They shared stories and songs with us that evoke the unique natural beauty, highly personalized sense of expression, and vibrant community feeling that make the Yukon such a magical place for music. 

In Part 2, we hear from Alex MacNeil (leader of the outsider power-pop favourites Alex MacNeil and the Revenants, accompanied here by Hendika), the idiosyncratic punk-inspired stylings of Cryptozoologists, and the spirited soulful beauty of Bria Rose N' Thorns. 

Host: Grant Stovel | Producer: Scott Zielsdorf | Graphics: Craig Taffs | Music: Doug Hoyer

Recording and mastering for this episode by Brendan Cross. 

The Hidden Track Podcast is a CKUA production made possible by our incredible donor community. Thank you for your support!

Joel Plaskett first came to fame in the beloved rock band Thrush Hermit, a group who came together as teenagers in Halifax and barnstormed across Canada and beyond throughout the '90s with a dynamic stage show, plus an actual neon sign reading "Rock and Roll". In fact, last time Joel visited CKUA's Edmonton studios was five years ago during a Thrush Hermit reunion tour, and he told us about keeping that "Rock and Roll" sign in storage for many years. 

For his autumn 2024 tour, he certainly wasn't in need of the iconic "Rock and Roll" sign. It was just himself and his guitars (plus a reclining armchair and photo projector) for an album launch tour to celebrate his stunningly intimate acoustic album One Real Reveal. 

He's an artist who's been known to challenge himself to ever-greater thematic journeys in his solo work. There's his well-loved 2009 release Three— his third solo outing - a triple album which was largely made up of songs with triple-barrelled titles. Then there was 44, released the day before he turned 45, consisting of four albums of eleven songs each. He's come up with maybe an even more daunting creative challenge this time, scaling the process all the way down to the number one — a record made with a single microphone, created almost entirely by Joel alone. Except for one very notable exception, which he'll reveal to us in this conversation.

An unparallelled storyteller and an artist of remarkable candour and curiosity, Joel Plaskett shared very generously with us about the serendipitous musical moment that sparked this whole album, how it represents a return to his roots in somewhat surprising ways, how spoken word suddenly introduced itself as part of his artistry, and the importance of embracing the presence, spontaneity, transience, and cyclical nature of music, art, and life. This is a Hidden Track Story: Joel Plaskett | Four Tracks and the Truth.

Host: Grant Stovel | Producer: Scott Zielsdorf | Graphics: Craig Taffs | Music: Doug Hoyer

The Hidden Track Podcast is a CKUA production made possible by the generosity of our donour community. Thank you for your support! 

For this special episode, Hidden Track is doing something utterly different. This isn’t a feature on one artist, song, or album. It casts a spotlight on a whole scene—on a whole Canadian Territory, in a sense!  

Yukon is a Canadian territory that’s bigger than most countries on Earth, but its nearly half-million square kilometres are inhabited by only about 40,000 people. 

In partnership with both Music Yukon and The Edmonton Fringe, CKUA invited five acts into CKUA’s Studio to share some of their music and their story with us. In Part 1 of this unique collaboration, we hear from Ellorie McKnight and her longtime musical collaborator Brigitte Jardin, touring veterans Diyet & the Love Soldiers, and the incredibly soulful Elijah Bekk (and band). 

The Hidden Track Podcast is a CKUA production, made possible by the generous contributions of our donors. Thank you for your support! 

Host: Grant Stovel | Producer: Scott Zielsdorf | Graphics: Shaun Friesen | Music: Doug Hoyer

Associate Producer: Aajah Souter

Recording and mastering for this Session provided by Brendan Cross. 

She's a musician whose artistic vision and songwriting are every bit as distinctive and expressive as that spectacular voice of hers. Frazey Ford's trademark tremulous croon first became well-known as part of the vocal blend for globally-renowned Vancouver folk music mainstays The Be Good Tanyas. While that band's aesthetic leaned toward the folky and jazzy, Frazey's own instincts have always been strongly inclined toward a classic soul music feel. 

Her 2010 debut album Obadiah began to chart her own unique artistic course, which she further developed with 2014's Indian Ocean, and 2020's U Kin B the Sun. 

In this free-wheeling conversation, we'll learn about the rather stunning experiments in creativity that led to her beautiful latest release; as well as the nearly stranger-than-fiction story behind Indian Ocean, which turned 10 years old in October of 2024. Those sessions took place in Memphis, in the studio where many of her all-time favourite soul songs were recorded in the 1970s – with the very musicians who helped to craft them. 

And as a special bonus treat (and a meta experience of sorts) – we conclude this episode of Hidden Track with an actual hidden track! One that appears at the end of the streaming version of Indian Ocean. This is a Hidden Track Story from a dressing room at the Arden Theatre with the wonderful Frazey Ford. 

Host: Grant Stovel | Producer: Scott Zielsdorf | Graphics: Craig Taffs | Music: Doug Hoyer

The Hidden Track Podcast is a CKUA production made possible by the generosity of our donor community. Thank you for your support! 

In many ways, Frank is the perfect name for this well-loved singer-songwriter, producer, and eternal punk rock firebrand. 

Kind of like the many tattoos that adorn his arms, Frank Turner wears his heart right on his sleeve. Always unstintingly honest in all his artistic endeavours, Frank's music carries a candour and conviction that's incredibly powerful – devastating, even. Frank always manages always to have the ability to connect directly with the human heart – whether sharing tenderly of his own life's journey through his songs, or pushing back with snarling ferocity against fascism and injustice, his music resounds with urgency, authenticity, and humanity. No matter if you're talking about the all-out sonic assault of his fearsome band, Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls, or – equally powerfully –  when Frank is in the intimate solo acoustic mode that we experience on this episode. 

As we'll hear during this Hidden Track Session, Frank Turner is an astoundingly intelligent and acute observer of the human condition, a seemingly tireless road dog, a devoted music nerd of the very highest order, and a truly humble soul. 

He carved out some time between shows to join us in CKUA Live Performance Space in Edmonton, as he passed through on a relentless world tour celebrating his triumphant 2024 release, Undefeated. The record arrives on the heels of his 2022 album FTHC (for Frank Turner Hardcore) which – 15 years into his solo discography – saw this folk-punk troubadour shoot all the way up to Number One on the British Album Chart! For context, other artists to score UK Number One albums that year were people like Ed Sheeran, Beyonce, and Taylor Swift. 

But rather than try to repeat that formula for success, Frank decided to take the opportunity to instead to make this new album without a major label; and for the first time in his ten albums to date, to produce it entirely himself, in his own home studio. 

And as Frank tells us, the songs on Undefeated are mostly derived from stories drawn from his own life journey. In conversation, Frank is a fount of wonderful stories, insights, jokes, and esoteric music trivia – while as a songwriter and performer, he distills all of his brilliance down to a razor-sharp point. Along with a characteristically brilliant conversation with Frank, we're treated to an absolutely exquisite, heartfelt performance of three songs from Frank's new album, solo acoustic in CKUA studios: "Letters", "Girl from the Record Shop", and one of his most beautiful compositions to date, "Somewhere in Between". 

Host: Grant Stovel | Producer: Scott Zielsdorf | Recording/Mastering: Brendan Cross | Music: Doug Hoyer