With the 2025 release of his third album, Lucky Man, singer-songwriter Mike Stack is back. The album’s title echoes how he feels about life and his return to music after a 17-year hiatus, before which Stack was a treasured musical staple around Alberta. His 2001 album I Need Wheels was in heavy rotation on CKUA and across North America, Japan and Europe, dominating critics’ yearly Top 10 lists while he performed folk fests, folk clubs and singer/songwriter sessions with local treasures.

Then fate struck in the form of surprise parenthood and family loss, which focused Stack’s energy elsewhere. Still, heartache feeds music, and songs piled up. He recorded in Nashville with long-time friend, producer Steve Dawson at the dials while John Prine’s bassist and Sheryl Crow’s keyboardist played along. The gratitude expressed by the album’s title is earned, born of the gift of his relationship with his now teenage daughter and his ability to land sunny-side up after the dark times in life. Both inform his music, which travels like the man himself, busted headlight or not, roving through stripped down tales, cajun dust, and the vagabond sunshine conjured by rockin’ and reelin’ fiddle and pedal steel. Yes, indeed, Stack is back.

-Mary-Lynn Wardle