Stony Plain is a record company based in Edmonton, Alberta, a culturally diverse city on the edge of Canada’s prairies, but one that rarely shows up on the music industry radar. The label specializes in what its founder, Holgar Peterson calls roots music: Contemporary music with roots in the past that stands on its own, but which influences almost all the pop music you hear around you. Established in 1976, the label has released over 300 albums of blues, classic R&B, folk, country, bluegrass, rock and roll, and music that is impossible to put into neat pigeonholes. The common element in all of these forms of music is that the musicians, regardless of current fad or fashion, put their hearts and souls into the music they make. Stony Plain released the results – and almost invariably found that people responded. Stony Plain has received two Grammy Award nominations: for Maria Muldaur’s Richland Woman Blues in 2001 and Jay McShann’s Goin’ to Kansas City in 2003. The label and its artists have also garnered numerous W.C. Handy Blues Award nominations and won several Handy Awards. In Canada, Stony Plain has won several Juno Awards (Canada’s equivalent to the Grammy), Canadian Country Music Association Awards, Maple Blues Awards and Western Canada Music Awards. On a personal level, Holger Petersen was honored for his contributions to Canadian arts and culture with an honorary Doctorate from Athabasca University in 2002 and was awarded the highest honor a Canadian can receive, the Order of Canada, in 2003. Today, almost 30 years on, Stony Plain has built a remarkable reputation. Jerry Wexler, the great producer and one of the founders of Atlantic Records, tells people that “Stony Plain, as an independent company, is an endangered species in a dangerous world – and a source of wonderful music.” It’s praise like that that gives Petersen’s life a special sparkle. That he could even get to meet the man who produced the classic records by Aretha Franklin, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, T-Bone Walker, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, and Dire Straits (among hundreds of others) is something that he regards as a special honour – to receive such support is almost beyond belief. All these years later, Holger Petersen still hears music that surprises him and delights him; the tired cynicism that’s part of so many people in the music industry just isn’t part of the man’s make-up. And Stony Plain is still run out of a pleasant house in Edmonton, with three rooms filled with one of the most comprehensive record collections in Canada.