How does a western Canadian folk troubadour end up in a Nashville studio recording songs with John Prine’s bassist, Sheryl Crow’s keyboardist, and Junior Brown’s drummer?
Answer: with stirring Americana music that reflects both the hellish and sweet sides of life, and connections that are more durable than fossils. That’s how songwriter Mike Stack strode forth to release his third album, Lucky Man, more than 15 years after his second one.
Stack is a musical staple around Alberta. His 2001 album I Need Wheels was in heavy rotation on CKUA and across North America, Japan and Europe. It dominated critics’ yearly Top 10 lists. He’s performed at Calgary Folk Fest, folk clubs and singer-songwriter sessions around North America, including a memorable two nighter with international sensation Oscar Lopez and Calgary’s now elder statesman Tom Phillips at the old Ironwood.
In 2008 Stack released his sophomore album 98 Years, and just as followers yearned for festival and club performances of those songs, he disappeared.
“My personal life changed for different reasons that didn’t warrant me getting out and playing music as much as I wanted to,” Stack says on a phone call from the side of a highway heading to his place in Kimberley, B.C. “I looked at priorities in my life and responsibilities. I lost so much time with 98 Years because I didn’t have any energy into marketing it and getting out and playing it.”
Losing his sister to cancer, fathering a surprise gift of a daughter when he was 49, and some choppy day-job moments all convened to pull the switch on his musical tracks … until now.
Lucky Man will be celebrated with two shows at Ironwood Stage this month. Having honed songs written over those challenging times, Stack reached out to his friend of thirty years, Juno winning producer Steve Dawson, to record at Dawson’s Henhouse Studio in East Nashville. Parallel to how Stack said he would not get another after his dog Ely passed — the inspiration for 98 Years and named after Austin songwriting legend Joe Ely — Stack said he couldn’t devote proper time to music, and thus, would not create another album until he could.
“My life would not be fair [for] a dog,” he says. “I couldn’t give it what it needed. The same goes for music and an album. If I cannot give my songs what they deserve, they just have to wait until I can. Which is what I did with this album.”
When his life was finally more open, the album arrived. In this manner, he honours one of his influences, John Prine. “He said I will serve no song before its prime.”
Dawson lined up musicians like Jenn Gunderman, who was Sheryl Crow’s keyboardist, John Prine’s bassist Dave Jacques, and Justin Amaral, who played with Junior Brown. They serve up these songs hot, sweet, and steamy. Listening to lines like “You’ve got a lot less future than you’ve got past” and “No matter the weather, I think we’re the perfect storm,” it’s hard to miss Stack’s impeccable ear for wordplay. Lucky Man is a delicious listen, filled with smooth sounds sans saccharine traces, and lyrics reflecting a life filled with rough moments, but also an earned gratitude for the journey to date, as reflected in the title track.
Dawson and his band, The Hooded Mergansers, will be Stack’s backing band for his Ironwood shows. Calgary songwriter Emily Triggs will open the show and add backing vocals to Stack’s set as well.
“Three major things were falling apart in my life, and I was fucking hanging on for dear life and not really having the clear capacity in my mind to write,” says Stack. “A lot of people think that would be the best place to write from, but I cannot write while I’m in a funk. But I can write about the funk after the fact.”
That’s the fuel that lit his fire: things falling apart while he wrote in his trailer in Kananaskis, or on the Gulf of Mexico in Texas, or in Parksville, B.C., where his daughter was born. “I’ve written in many different places and times. The songs I like the most I’ve written in one to two hours. A lot of those songs were written in 45 minutes.
“When I’m in [those] environments, I’m clear. I’m free of encumbrances. It’s peaceful.”
Mike Stack’s album release shows are at the Ironwood Stage and Grill, 1229 9 Ave. S.E., on September 26 and 27.
