Labour Day by Spirit of the West

Labour Day, the 1988 album from North Vancouver folk band Spirit of the West, came out on Stony Plain Records, and it's the one that got them on the radio. "Political" did the trick, the first of their songs to catch fire on campus stations and CBC Radio One, a sharp, restless folk tune.

It was Hugh McMillan's first album with the band, though the road took its toll: the tour wore him down, and he stepped away for a spell while Daniel Lapp and Linda McRae filled in. McMillan came back before the next record. Around it the record is all bright, bustling acoustic folk rooted in tradition. It was their first album to crack the RPM Top 100, peaking at number 64, and it picked up a Juno nomination for Best Roots & Traditional Album. When the band plugged in and turned toward alternative rock, they revamped "Political" for Go Figure in 1991.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.