For most people, their first introduction to Crystal Shawanda came through country radio. Her debut album, Dawn of a New Day, launched in June 2008 and opened at number two on the Canadian Country Albums chart.
South of the border, the album debuted at number 16 on the Billboard Top Country chart, and this early success inspired more recordings, tours, and musical discoveries.
On that last point, perhaps the most drastic curve Shawanda threw to music fans was her transition to blues music, beginning with The Whole World’s Got the Blues, her fourth studio album released in 2014.
When she takes the stage on Sunday, September 5 to headline this year’s BluesFest in North Bay, she’ll be unleashing many tracks from her new record, along with fan favourites from her musical canon.
Because of Covid-19, this tour marks the “first time we’ve played all this new music in front of people,” and “we’re so excited, this is our first time playing this festival.”
See: Capitol Centre announces the return of Bluesfest
As for the sea-change from country to blues, “it wasn’t an easy transition,” she admitted. Some fans felt she was abandoning her country roots, while some others thought she was not bluesy enough to excel in her new genre.
Divided fans aside, Shawanda felt compelled to engage with the blues, acknowledging this path is part of her musical journey, and is eager to see where the road leads.
“I’m just like everybody else,” she said, “I’m trying to figure out who I am, where I fit in, where I belong, and when I sing blues music, it just feels right.”
It feels right, and the genre also allows her to spread her musical wings, opening new ideas and inspiring new songs and stories.
Before turning to blues, she noticed herself feeling disconnected from the music she was writing for what would have been another country album. She realized she was “trying to fit into radio,” writing for an imagined audience, and not remaining true to her own voice.
The realization led her to pen “The Whole World’s Got the Blues,” (see the video below) which became the title track of her first blues album, and the experience opened the doors “artistically, creatively, and personally” to a refreshing musical turn.
She wrote the song with her husband, Dewayne Strobel. They met in Nashville 18 years ago on the music scene. They write together, record together, and Strobel is the guy laying down those great melodic guitar lines on all her albums.
That song, and that first album, was “something I genuinely cared about,” and as an added bonus, “it gets played on radio stations.”
Both live in Nashville, and record there as well, drawing from the deep well of musical talent who make up Music City.
Her newest album, Church House Blues, features session aces who have played and recorded with the likes of Dwight Yoakam, Johnny Cash, and CeeLo Green.
And although she hangs her hat in Tennessee, Shawanda remains rooted to Manitoulin Island, where “the hardest part about leaving is staying gone.”
She was born and raised on Wikwemikong First Nation, and when she has Ontario shows lined up, she does her best to “use my parent’s home as home base” for the tour.
Those family ties help ground her, and provide a solid musical foundation, having “grown up on all kinds of music,” within the house, straining to hear her brother’s blues records spinning from downstairs.
Her Ojibwe culture also inspired her musical life, with fond memories of Pow Wows, listening to the drums, traditional songs, watching the dancers intertwine with the melodies.
“I grew up around it” she said, “I always connected with it, and I always experimented with it,” in her own music.
Asked to describe traditional Ojibwe music, she summarizes: “drumming, shakers, singing, a lot of our music is the melody of the singer, the song, what they’re relating, sometimes there’s not always words, because there are no words for the feeling you’re trying to express except for the way that it comes out when you sing it.”
“We find ways to put my influence, my culture into production,” while creating records.
A perfect example of this is Shawanda’s “Pray Sister Pray” from The Whole World’s Got the Blues. The song offers a wrenching look at the many cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women throughout Canada, which culminated in a national inquiry in 2016.
“So now the newsman said she was a runaway all along,” she sings, “we all know better ‘round here, they’re just glad that another one’s gone.”
“Someone’s got a secret, they’re too scared to tell,” the song concludes, making clear Shawanda’s not afraid to make a point when she feels compelled to.
There’s “a hand drum in the track,” she divulged, “a big pow wow drum,” resonates deep in the mix, “and we had a jingle dress dancer come in the studio, and we recorded that” to layer the song.
Despite the power of “Pray Sister Pray” to raise awareness of devasting social issues, some criticized Shawanda, suggesting the song was not actually blues.
“But yes, it is,” she clarified. “This is our blues, this is our Indigenous blues,” she emphasized. “I want to be authentic; I want to be genuine, I want to tell our stories” through the music, and blues, which has always told the tales of the marginalized, exploited, and oppressed, provides the perfect medium.
Her goal is to “connect with the raw emotions of blues,” while “trying to express our stories as well within that genre.”
“It feels natural, it feels like it makes sense for me.”
Shawanda’s entry into music has become almost legend. She started young, just a 10-year-old kid playing gigs, singing country classics to country loving folk, when a couple years later, she caught a ride with her dad, who used to make a lot of long haul runs to the southern states.
Destination, Nashville. Soon after, she recorded her first album, and achieved enough success from that to create six more.
“It was my mission to go mainstream,” she said, “so I could hopefully open doors for others.”
Shawanda’s goal to open doors for other Indigenous artists was helped when she achieved a milestone in Canadian music.
This June, she was awarded a Juno for Best Blues Album of the Year, the first Indigenous person to receive the statue in that category.
“There’s some change happening,” she said, “and I think there needs to be more change.”
“I always say that representation matters, and for me growing up I didn’t see anyone who looked like me,” in the media, “or anybody on the radio who looked like me and that definitely affects your self-esteem, your confidence,” she admits.
“So that was a big part of my mission and my goal” with her career, “hoping more and more generations to come will take our torch and burn it up.”
“It was always about representing,” she said, “that’s what it’s always been about for me.”
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
