Weyburn farmer and singer-songwriter Dan Cugnet has unveiled his new album, Mostly True Stories, drawing on local legends and personal tales from southeast Saskatchewan. Released this past Friday, the collection blends historical facts with storytelling flair across tracks spanning over a century. Cugnet emphasizes that the songs capture lore rather than definitive history.
Dan Cugnet, a farmer and singer-songwriter from Weyburn, Saskatchewan, launched his latest album, Mostly True Stories, on Friday. The project weaves together oral histories and anecdotes rooted in the southeast Saskatchewan landscape where he grew up and works the land.
Cugnet has long incorporated narrative songs into his music, but this album emerged from the abundance of stories in his immediate surroundings. "I grew up hearing a lot of these, you know, the stories about the quarter up the road or this happened five miles this way in 1962," he said. "The seed was embedded pretty early on."
The title nods to Cugnet's method of mixing verifiable events with creative embellishments to bridge gaps in folklore. "By no means should anybody take all of this as gospel or, you know, this is the definitive history," he explained. "That's legend and lore."
Tracks cover diverse eras and incidents. One recounts a 1960s shootout near Halbrite sparked by a dispute over a dozen eggs, a tale Cugnet learned from his grandfather and verified through local families. In contrast, "Five Busted Ribs" stems from a recent group chat about a friend's horseback mishap. "It was literally written throughout the day at a volleyball tournament from a bunch of back and forth in a group chat," Cugnet noted.
A standout is "The Graburn Letters," co-created with former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall. Inspired by Wall's poem on Constable Marmaduke Graburn—the sole North West Mounted Police officer killed in the Cypress Hills amid 19th-century tensions—the song imagines correspondence between the constable and his mother. "It was conceived, I guess, what he'd sent to me, sort of letters back and forth between the Constable and his mother," Cugnet described, highlighting the era's isolation. Terri Harris-Strunk provides vocals as Lady Graburn.
Produced by Bart McKay, the album features talents like Murray Pulver of Crash Test Dummies and five-time CMA Musician of the Year Jenee Fleenor. "I'm just very fortunate and incredibly grateful that there's so much talent to help create and make this stuff come to life," Cugnet said.
Mostly True Stories is available on major streaming platforms. Cugnet plans a spring release with a 1970s outlaw theme, marking a stylistic shift.