'Cross the Tracks

Libby & Cal - The Hagstrom-Schmidt Affair

Libby & Cal where a Millennial autoharpist meets a Boomer 12-string player at a festival and all sorts of musical magic ensues. Acoustic duo Libby & Cal transcend boundaries and trip across genres while tackling subjects that are rarely voiced in song. A delightfully risqué, painfully honest and musically stimulating experience. Libby plays her DIY-modified autoharp. Cal plays the 12-string he swapped for a bicycle. Together, Libby & Cal perform eclectic but surprisingly catchy indie-folk music. The Ottawa-based duo have played at various venues in Ontario and Quebec, as well as the 2025 California Autoharp Gathering. Libby bought her autoharp in 2014 after many back-breaking years of lugging her electric piano to gigs. Under the name Elizabeth Bruce she released two albums of original music, As We Sadden Each Other to Sleep and The Silent I Know. She currently teaches music and runs a monthly women-centered open mic in Ottawa called, “Sad Girl Café”. Cal (AKA Doug Hendry) has been entertaining crowds with his musical talent since the age of four, singing in a choir in his native Scotland. As a teenager, he made his way playing street corners and folk clubs throughout Britain and Europe. Cal emigrated to Canada in 1991 and has played regularly in various bands, including – Odd One Out, Bruce Enloe & the Burning Sensations, Emmi Winter & the Heroic Mad Peasants, Fiddlehead Soup, Tripoly, the Grenville Troubadours.

Amanda Rheaume - The Truth We Hold

Amanda Rheaume, a Citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario, is an award winning singer-songwriter with a slightly gritty, deeply personal and instantly accessible Americana sound. In title and spirit, The Truth We Hold is a collection of songs of Métis people, places and stories across centuries. A Métis songbook for future generations, the new album maps events, place names and family history with a careful, loving hand, drawing untold and unacknowledged experiences into the light. Amanda Rheaume is the recipient of the 2024 Spirit of Folk Award, 2023 Canadian Fold Music Award for Indigenous Songwriter of the Year and the 2023 Capital Music Awards’ Album of the Year. Rheaume has released six full-length albums to date. Beyond recording and touring, Rheaume continues her ever-expanding role as an essential advocate of Indigenous music infrastructure and community. As a co-founder of Ishkode Records and International Indigenous Music Summit and founding board member of the Indigenous Music Office, a commitment to raising Indigenous sovereignty through the medicine of music motivates all of Rheaume’s work.

Stan Louttit - NORTHBOUND51

The debut album from NORTHBOUND51 is about longing for home, the land, and the people of our small town. We sing about human relationships, love, and life’s journey that take us away from home. We sing about the train that eventually takes us back north through muskeg, across rivers, by lakes; eventually home to our parents, grandparents and friends. NORTHBOUND51 is Marilyn Gunner-Mcleod (vocals, acoustic guitar), Darrell Mcleod (electric guitars) and Stan Louttit (Bass guitar).

James Gordon - Emergency Climate Musical

James Gordon’s Emergency Climate Musical – His one-man show is a ninety-minute theatrical investigation of what surely is THE issue in these uncertain times. Filled with compelling songs, videos, images, stories, rants, laughter, tears, audience participation, a creepy puppet and some concrete ways to face this crisis, James promises to entertain, inform, and leave you with homework. Follow along as he outlines his premise that we need a total political, societal and economic make-over to face the incredible challenge ahead. He’s got the cred for the job: James moonlit as a Guelph City Councilor for 8 years, where he introduced climate change motions, and he’s a member of the National Climate Leadership Caucus. Released February 1, 2020. Produced by Evan and James Gordon – with 9 tracks used by permission from Borealis Records, where the songs were first released.

Mudfoot Mike McDonald - Groovin' The Blues

Mudfoot Mike McDonald has traveled the road that calls itself home, the blues. Originally from Nova Scotia, Mudfoot Mike found himself a home in the Toronto music scene for a very long stretch, carving out a slice of Canadian blues history as the in-house music director at legendary Grossman’s Tavern, and often as performer and bandmate on guitar and vocals. It was there where the best of the best would find themselves on stage when they weren’t touring somewhere on the continent or abroad. Mike toured extensively then, less so now, but always then and now with a deep love for the music and a respect earned with on-the-job experience. And stories to tell. Mudfoot Mike took to songwriting and has penned several tunes over his career, but never officially releasing an album under his own name. The veteran musician and producer is on the road to possibly changing that.