Miles Morrisseau
ICT
Crystal Shawanda burst onto the Canadian music scene nearly 20 years ago with a hit debut country record, a certified classic, charting on both sides of the border.
Despite big record company pressures to keep making hit country records, however, she went to the blues to find her joy.
The blues brought her a whole new group of fans worldwide, along with additional recognition from her peers and the music industry. Her latest release, “Sing Pretty Blues,” is nominated for a 2026 Juno Award for Best Blues Album of the Year at the upcoming music celebration of the best in Canadian music.
Shawanda, Ojibwe/Potawatomi, believes that the new record is connecting with audiences who are looking to find joy in resilience.
“This new album is called ‘Sing Pretty Blues,’ and I think there’s like a commonality of strength and resilience and finding the courage to feel joy again when you’ve been through so much,” Shawanda told ICT from her home in Nashville, Tennessee, about the title track.
“We wrote this song about a conversation I had with a photographer as I came off stage. He was like, ‘Hey, Crystal, that was a fantastic show, think I got a good shot of you, but I’m not really sure because you don’t really sing pretty. So sometimes it’s hard to get a good pic of you,’” she said.
Shawanda was at first angered by the comment, but then turned it into a positive and agreed with it.
“I don’t sing pretty,” she said. “When I get up on stage, I’m very passionate and I make all kinds of weird faces. I don’t really care what I look like because, you know, it’s not just a show,” she said. “I’m healing a different part of myself, and healing is not always pretty.”
It has been this honesty in her work that has helped her cultivate fans around the world. In Canada, she is among the most iconic First Nations female Indigenous artists in history.
‘Very eclectic’
Shawanda didn’t just show up; she exploded.
Her first single is a certified country classic, a Canadian version of “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” the George Jones song that can break you at moments of weakness.
The song, “You Can Let Go Now,” from her first record, “Dawn of a New Day,” tells of signature times in life when a loving father understands that his daughter is growing up and he “can let go,” from riding a bike, to getting married and to a final death bed scene. The song charted on both sides of the border and has remained an important part of her repertoire.
“I still get messages every day from people who are just discovering the song now. And that’s incredible,” she said. “You know, I hear stories at my meet and greets, of what the song has meant to people. It’s been really good medicine for a lot of people. And I feel like people hear it when they’re meant to hear it, when they need to hear it.”
Shawanda grew up in the Wikwemikong Unceded territory on Manitoulin Island, the largest freshwater island in the world, in a house filled with music.
“I grew up in a home where we listened to all styles of music. It wasn’t just one genre.” she said. “There was just good music and bad music. And my family had very high standards of what they listened to.”
Her parents listened to traditional country music, such as Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline. Her oldest brother listened to B.B. King, Muddy Waters and Etta James. Another brother listened to Black Sabbath, AC/DC, and Steve Earle.
“It was very eclectic,” she said. “I’m very much a product of that.”
It is the blues, however, that is the foundation of the contemporary music that has connected most deeply to Shawanda at this point in her career. She believes that Indigenous people connect with music because of a shared history of oppression with African-Americans who created the sound.
“The Black community, they created this genre of music to inspire themselves, to keep themselves going when life got tough. And I think we as Indigenous people really connect to that because we know what it’s like, “Shawanda said. “We’re looking for inspiration, ‘How do we rise above our oppression?’”
Looking ahead
Shawanda has been nominated and won numerous awards throughout her career. In 2008 she won Female Artist of the Year at the Canadian Country Music Awards and a Canadian Radio Music Award for Best New Country Artist the following year. She has won numerous Aboriginal People’s Choice awards and Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards.
In 2013, she took home her first Juno in the category of Best Aboriginal Album of the Year for her release, “Just Like You.”
She won the Blues Album of the Year in 2021 for “Church House Blues.” and was nominated again in that category in 2022 for her album, “Midnight Blues.”
The Juno Awards will include events in Hamilton, Ontario, throughout the final weekend in March, including the Indigenous Honoring Ceremony on Saturday March 28. The awards show is on Sunday, March 29, and will be broadcast live on CBC and CBC Gem.