Calgary singer Alex Hughes makes Coca-Cola Stage debut July 5

Calgary country-pop singer-songwriter Alex Hughes will make her Coca-Cola Stage debut on July 5 at the Calgary Stampede, performing her debut EP Take Me Home just days after its release.

The six-song EP marked a milestone for Hughes. A week before her album release party at the King Eddy, a manufacturing error nearly derailed the vinyl pressing, but the required plate arrived just in time. Hughes travelled to Canadian Vinyl Records to witness the first pressing drop from the machine. "I totally had full tears in my eyes. It was pretty surreal," she said.

Take Me Home represents her true debut—a collection of songs showcasing her maturity as a songwriter and vocalist. She co-wrote five of the six tracks, all products of a Nashville songwriting trip where she worked with established writers in Music City's famous writing rooms. "It kind of spans a coming-of-age moment of love songs and breakup songs that all live in this time frame of young adulthood," Hughes said.

The songs on Take Me Home—from the moody mid-tempo title track to the Lucinda Williams-esque blues of You Got Me to the poppy Break All the Way—would fit comfortably on mainstream country radio. Break All the Way is the only track Hughes didn't co-write; it was pitched to her by BC producer Dan Swinimer, who has been instrumental in her rise. "I wasn't hugely open to recording songs that are pitches because I always want to be personally part of it, but I heard the song and I was like 'I'm obsessed with this song, I have to be the voice on it.'"

Hughes' momentum has been building. Her 2023 single Until This Fire Dies, a country-pop ballad about infatuation, landed on the cover of Apple Music's Canada's Country playlist and found strong traction on Spotify, demonstrating she's on the right trajectory. Recorded in Vancouver, Take Me Home promises to carry that momentum into the Stampede season.