Laurie Ingalls

Laurie Ingalls was a Western Canadian singer-songwriter, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and recording engineer closely associated with the active Lethbridge, Alberta music community of the late 1970s. His principal surviving statement is the independently released album Cheap Champagne, a remarkably accomplished mixture of funk, soul, soft rock, country-rock and Prairie pop recorded with many of the strongest musicians working in Southern Alberta at the time.

Ingalls had already spent years performing before making the album. In its original insert, he described Cheap Champagne as “like a final exam”—the culmination of lessons learned from his earliest sock-hop appearance, for which each musician received $1.50, through years of travelling across Western Canada and playing almost every type of club and tavern imaginable.

He explained that the songs drew upon fact, fiction and fantasy, and that music had been both his life and livelihood. It allowed him to express the joys and sorrows encountered along the way, even though his own life had not resembled the fast cars, wealth and glamorous women sometimes portrayed in popular songs. His ambitions were expressed more modestly: music, companionship and enough cheap champagne to carry on.

That personal outlook gives the album much of its character. Rather than sounding calculated or detached, Cheap Champagne has the warmth of musicians who knew one another and were comfortable playing together. Ingalls’ prominent bass lines anchor the record, while electric piano, Hammond organ, clavinet, synthesizer, layered guitars, harmonica, saxophone and percussion give the songs a relaxed but consistently rhythmic feel.

Ingalls was the project’s creative and technical centre. He wrote all eleven songs and performed lead and harmony vocals, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, synthesizer, string ensemble, harmonica and percussion. He also produced the record, shared the engineering and mixing, arranged the songs and conceived the cover.

The material ranges from the late-night soulfulness of ‘Cheap Champagne’ and ‘Midnight Lady’ to the understated funk of ‘Peace Country’ and ‘Baby You Were Wrong’. ‘Goin’ Home’, ‘Sailing’ and ‘Mountain Magic’ introduce country and folk-rock elements, while ‘Ballad of an Outlaw’ unfolds as an extended western narrative. Even the quieter songs retain the album’s loose ensemble quality and Ingalls’ melodic bass playing.

The record was made at Southern Sound Recording Studio, 530 5th Street South in Lethbridge, located beneath Pruegger’s Music. Guitarist and engineer Dave Filchak had built the studio after returning to Southern Alberta from Los Angeles in 1978. Southern Sound soon became a busy regional facility, recording local performers, travelling musicians, commercial work and independent albums. Filchak remembered assembling many of Lethbridge’s finest musicians there and recording basic tracks live as a band whenever possible.

Ingalls was not simply an artist hiring the facility for his own record. He worked within the Southern Sound circle as a musician and engineer. He was one of the engineers on Filchak’s Livin’ on Laughs and played bass on several recordings by singer-songwriter Peter Archer, including ‘Well of Fortune’, ‘The Music It Makes’ and ‘Millionaire’. Filchak’s surviving recollections place Ingalls among the musicians who regularly gathered at the 5th Street studio during 1978 and 1979.

The complete Cheap Champagne personnel list reveals the depth of that local network. Murray Nelson played electric, acoustic and classical guitars and banjo, while also assisting Ingalls with the arrangements. Earl MacAuley, heard on acoustic piano and clavinet, also contributed to the arrangements. Val Bernie sang harmony and assisted with the vocal arrangements.

Russ Hauser supplied Rhodes piano, Hammond organ and string ensemble, as well as the opening laugh on ‘Peace Country’. Brad Valgardson played drums, while Jim Williams added congas and tambourine. Hauser, Valgardson and Williams were among the musicians remembered from Lethbridge’s busy cabaret and dance-band circuit, including combinations such as the Bogus Boogie Band and Kathy and the Koolaid Kids. Contemporary participants later described the city’s 1970s music community as unusually rich in players and live opportunities.

Other contributors broadened the album’s palette. Dennis McGetrick played electric and acoustic guitars; John Vossos played tenor saxophone; Jim McKinnon contributed pedal steel guitar; Eddie Dietrich played fiddle; Dan Reeder supplied harmony vocals; and Eric Geisreiter added percussion. Geisreiter had also played with the Lethbridge rock band Moses, one of the better-documented groups to emerge from the same regional community.

Dean Bohne contributed electric guitar and synthesizer and shared the engineering duties with Ingalls and Filchak. Filchak played electric guitar and helped Ingalls mix the album. In the original acknowledgements, Ingalls thanked Filchak for his “opportunity and guidance,” suggesting that Filchak’s technical experience and the availability of Southern Sound were important to the album’s completion.

The sessions were collaborative without obscuring Ingalls’ authorship. Every song was written by him, and the album’s unusually broad instrumental range reflects his ability to move naturally between rock, soul, country and folk traditions. Rather than treating those styles as separate categories, Cheap Champagne blends them into an easygoing regional sound shaped by Ingalls’ voice, bass playing and arrangements.

The album’s lyrics also reveal a musician writing from years spent on the road. ‘Goin’ Home’ considers the pull of returning after prolonged travel; ‘Fairweather Woman’ turns disappointment into an upbeat dismissal; ‘Peace Country’ celebrates music, companionship and the landscape around the Peace River; and ‘Mountain Magic’ imagines escape from urban and industrial life into a cabin surrounded by mountains, firelight and friends.

The record was manufactured by Praise Records and released in Canada in 1979. The Burnaby address printed on its cover relates to manufacturing rather than the creative origins of the project: the performances, recording and much of the personnel belong unmistakably to the Lethbridge scene.

No second Laurie Ingalls solo album has yet been documented in the sources located for this project. His work nevertheless survives beyond Cheap Champagne through his engineering and bass contributions to other Southern Sound recordings. Those connections show that he was not an isolated private-press artist, but an active participant in a productive community of Southern Alberta musicians.

Interest in the album has gradually extended beyond Canadian collector circles. In May 2025, ‘Peace Country’ was featured on NTS Radio’s The Windmills of Your Mind, bringing Ingalls’ music to a new international audience more than forty-five years after it was recorded.

Cheap Champagne is both a personal album and a valuable document of Lethbridge’s independent recording culture. It captures Ingalls at the centre of a close-knit group of musicians, combining his years of performance experience with the possibilities offered by a local studio and an unusually versatile supporting cast.

Laurie Ingalls may have left behind only one known album under his own name, but it is a remarkably complete portrait: warm, funky, soulful and deeply rooted in the musicians, roads and atmosphere of Western Canada.

-Robert Williston