Scott Roos
Special to the Herald
For Taya Lebel, the road to a career in country music is taking her through some familiar territory.
The Prince Albert-raised singer-songwriter will return home Sept. 16 for “Road to the CCMA’s 2026,” an evening of live music at the Rock Trout featuring Lebel alongside Jeremy Grey and Justin Sutton.
Doors open at 7 p.m., with music getting underway at 8 p.m. Tickets are $18 in advance and $20 at the door.
For Lebel, the show is more than another date on an increasingly busy calendar. It’s an opportunity to reconnect with the city where she grew up and begin building a stronger relationship with a Prince Albert audience.
“I don’t really get to come play in Prince Albert often, just because I feel like there’s not a whole lot of venues that I can play at,” Lebel said. “So I’m pretty excited to come play the Rock Trout.”
Lebel has spent much of the summer performing regularly, playing often since the beginning of July while trying to find time to continue writing new material. That’s not always an easy balancing act.
“I just kind of force myself to sit down and do it,” she said of her songwriting process. “Sometimes nothing comes out. And sometimes I get like half a song or whatever written in one night.”
Her most recent single, “Didn’t Get Far,” is particularly significant because it was the first song she ever completed.
“I had other songs that I started, but kind of realized they weren’t going to go anywhere,” Lebel said. “So that’s the first one I ever finished.”
The song, written several years ago, also shows a playful side of Lebel’s songwriting, telling the story of a couple pulling off onto a dirt road and getting “caught up in the moment”.
While Lebel has been steadily establishing herself in Saskatoon’s music scene, she admits that success has come with an unintended consequence: Saskatchewan country music fans may not even realize she’s from Prince Albert.
“I feel like I kind of lost touch a little bit with Prince Albert for a while,” she said. “I feel like a lot of people don’t know I’m from Prince Albert originally, and lots of people think I’m from Saskatoon, because I kind of really started picking up with music in Saskatoon.”
The Sept. 16 show is part of her effort to change that.
“I really want to build a relationship with my audience in Prince Albert and kind of prioritize that and then build out from there,” she said.
And there are plenty of signs that things are beginning to move in the right direction. Lebel says releasing her music has helped open doors that weren’t necessarily available when she was primarily performing live.
“I feel like I’m kind of stepping up now,” she said. “Before it didn’t seem like I really had an audience or like a fan base, but now people are kind of stopping and staying for a while.”
Those opportunities include a country crawl appearance during the upcoming CCMA events in Saskatoon, as well as additional performances and new music in the works. For all the ambition, Lebel’s ultimate goal is surprisingly simple.
“I don’t have to be famous or Taylor Swift level or anything,” she said. “But just to be able to pay the bills with music is kind of my goal. It’s the only thing I really, really, really enjoy doing.”
The next stop on that road is Prince Albert. And on Sept. 16, the Rock Trout will provide a hometown stage for Lebel as she continues finding out just how far that road might take her.
