Among the many success stories of this year’s smash-hit Bragg Creek Days was, without a doubt, the incredible talent that took to the Calgary Stampede mobile stage.
Narrowing it down to just five acts was the toughest task for Rob Sawchuck of Bragg Creek’s Turkey and Pistols.
“It’s a tough, tough call, right?” he said. “There’s lots of talent here. We could be playing for two straight days, to be honest.”
Sawchuck, a hobbyist musician who runs a recording studio out of his shop in the heart of Bragg Creek’s retail district, calls himself a relative newcomer to the local music scene. But he quickly discovered just how deep the talent pool runs.
“I always say there’s a guitar player around every corner, and basement studios that win Grammys out of Bragg Creek,” he said. “There are Grammy-winning producers and Grammy-winning musicians coming into my shop all the time, finishing a session in somebody’s basement. There are a lot of creative people out here. You can feel the energy.”
The most renowned is Grammy-winning music engineer and producer Shawn Everett. He has six Grammys to his name, including a recent 2021 win for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical for Hyperspace by Beck. In 2024, he earned Producer of the Year and Recording Engineer of the Year at the Juno Awards for his work with Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard.
Five acts took the stage at Bragg Creek Days, including emerging Calgary-based recording artist and songwriter Jaiden Riley and her band.
Now nearing 25, Riley has been performing live professionally for about two and a half years and is quickly gaining a following. She wrote half of the songs she performed that day, including “Go With You,” which opened her set. Her debut single, Chickens in the Trailer Park, is slated for release in October.
“It’s been a great, crazy upswing for me, which is good,” she said. “There are lots of things on the horizon that I’m working toward and moving upward to, but also there are a lot of good, sentimental things that I’m part of that feel extremely grounding and are good for me in my career.”
Though based in Calgary, Riley has ties to both Bragg Creek and Cochrane. Her mother was raised on a family farm near Cochrane and comes from a rodeo family.
That connection resurfaced in an unusual way not long ago when Riley turned to several Cochrane Facebook groups in a frantic bid to recover a sentimental necklace she’d lost. She had given it to a friend for safekeeping while checking into Cochrane Urgent Care with pneumonia.
“I sent the message, ‘Hey, I lost this necklace, please keep your eyes out.’ It was all over and even aired on the radio (91.5 Cochrane Now), and then it showed up at the Fas Gas.”
Also featured on the Stampede stage were The Band Peak, Outlander, Jon Ramble & Matt Mason, and Kelsey Flower & The Floral Notes.
“I’ve been standing in my shop dreaming about this kind of thing,” said Sawchuck. “I’m a hobbyist musician who has a career now starting at 47, so it’s fun to encourage someone not to be scared. And that’s really what it was. The people we brought together have all helped me build my shop and build YouTube content.”
He says the music vibe in Bragg Creek is only getting stronger thanks to a wave of young and creative new residents.
“We have a thriving young community with lots of young parents moving here,” he said, "who are choosing Bragg Creek first before anywhere else, from all over Canada, and all over the world."
With passion, talent and a growing support network, Bragg Creek’s music scene is striking all the right chords.
