Crystal Shawanda is an Ojibwe Potawatomi multi award winning blues and country music artist from the Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island. Crystal, you come from a musical family background and you started performing at 6 years old and acting when you were just 9. Shortly thereafter, as a new teenager you recorded your first album in Nashville, TN, with Canadian producer Gary Buck, at age of 13. WOW!
Q. What instruments do you play?
Crystal: "I play guitar."
Q. What was that pivotal moment like when you first realized that music was to be your path, your life?
Crystal: "I was six years old, singing a song by myself at a school Christmas concert. I got to a funny part in the song and everyone laughed, and I can still remember feeling their happiness. Growing up in a community that was healing from intergenerational trauma, I was aware of the sadness all around me. Realizing I could make people happy just by singing was all I needed. Right then, I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life."
Q. What's more valuable to the listener? Technical mastery over music theory or the ability to cut to the emotional chase and move someone?
Crystal: "I think all of it is necessary and important, but if I had to choose, it's the ability to move someone. That's what helps people connect with you. A meaningful song can become more than just something fun to sing along to. It can be a lifeline, a friend when someone really needs one. That's what makes music last."
Crystal your professional career began in country music, where you quickly made history. After signing with RCA Nashville in her early twenties, your debut album Dawn of a New Day (2008) became the highest‑charting album by a full‑blooded Canadian Indigenous country artist in the SoundScan era. Q. Is it true that your surname translates to "Dawn of a New Day" which was the inspiration of the title track of your debut album of the same name?
Crystal: "Yes, that's the short version. The full meaning refers to the colours that appear at the first light of day, "Zhaawande," which is actually the proper spelling and pronunciation of my name. It's always been a mantra for me that no matter what happens, tomorrow is a new day to begin again. That's why I named my daughter Zhaawande. No matter what happens in life, her name will always remind her that every new day is a chance to start again."
Your breakout single “You Can Let Go” became one of the fastest‑rising hits on the Canadian Country Singles Chart, reaching Top 10 in just five weeks and climbing to #2 on the U.S. Mediabase chart. You then went on to become the first Indigenous woman to win the Canadian Country Music Award for Female Artist of the Year (2009). After releasing Just Like You (2010), which earned you a 2013 JUNO Award for Best Aboriginal Album, you shifted fully into the blues — the genre that had always called out to you. Your blues debut, The Whole World’s Got the Blues (2014), was followed by Fish Out of Water (2016), Voodoo Woman (2017), the JUNO‑winning Church House Blues (2020), which earned the 2021 JUNO Award for Blues Album of the Year. In 2022, your album Midnight Blues made you the first Indigenous woman to debut in the Billboard Blues Chart Top 10.
Q. Songwriting starts with a real spark—an emotion, a late-night thought—and builds into a shared human moment. What is that feeling like to be a trailblazer where you receive so many accolades, must be an exciting feeling knowing that you were honored for so many firsts in the industry.
Crystal: "It's an amazing feeling. At the end of the day, I'm still that little Rez kid deep inside. Looking back at the accolades is a beautiful reminder that I did it, that I accomplished more than I ever dreamed of. It makes all the sacrifices worth it."
Q. Share with your listeners about Crystal Shawanda's songwriting process and do you ever include your daughter, Zhaawande, in your studio recordings ?
Crystal: "The songwriting process is always different. Sometimes it starts with an idea, a lyric or a hook, and sometimes it's the melody. Our daughter is always with us, so she's very much a part of everything we do. She's sung background vocals on every album since she was born, and she has a featured part in a song called "Breaking Us in Pieces" on my new album. She also became a co-writer a few albums ago on a song called "Take a Little Walk with the Moon." We were out for a walk one night under a full moon when she looked up and said, "Come on Mommy and Daddy, let's go and take a little walk with the moon." My husband, who's my producer and co-writer, looked at me, and we instantly knew it would make a great song."
Q. As a teen starting out in this crazy thing we call music, did you ever think that 3+decades later that your career would be this significant and that your music would touch and change the lives of 100's of thousands around the world?
Crystal: "My dreams were pretty big, but honestly they were more like hopes because I had a deep-rooted fear that none of it would ever happen. Every day feels like a gift, a bonus, because I never thought I'd still be here like this, alive, happy, healed, and living the dream."
At 16, you moved to Nashville, TN, where you busked on street corners, and sat in at songwriters rounds, you moved back home to Wiikwemkoong for a couple years, and then back to Nashville again. You went back and forth one more time before permanently making it her home, and you have now been a resident ever since. Upon returning the final time you then played for tips at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge on Broadway where your band performed a mix of pre 1975 country, blues and rock and roll, Shawanda’s group built a devoted following among the songwriters, artists and producers who came to watch, Malo among them, then you signed a publishing deal with Island Bound Music in 2014, and then signed a production deal with Scott Hendricks in 2015, and signed with RCA Records in 2016.
That changed the night of her RCA Records showcase, when Shawanda looked up and saw Malo in the crowd. His presence meant everything to a young artist who admired him precisely because he never fit the country music mould. "That support, that interest, it inspired me and encouraged me," she says, calling it one of the breadcrumbs that told her to keep going.
Crystal your song "Come Unto Me" is a cover of The Mavericks classic which has come to life as a tribute to the late frontman Raul Malo, who heavily supported your early Nashville days and helped launched your career. When The Mavericks reunited years later with Eddie Perez joining the lineup, you and your husband, producer and guitarist Dewayne Strobel, began dreaming of one day collaborating with the band whose records had shaped them both. That dream took on new urgency when you began working up "Come Unto Me" just before Malo's passing in December 2025. Strobel encouraged you to carry the song forward as a tribute rather than set it aside, and invited Perez to be part of the recording. Perez accepted, contributing electric and acoustic guitars and backing vocals, and personally walked you through his parts on the track. "I was like a little kid, so nervous and excited," you said of the session, describing Perez sharing stories of his years alongside Malo. Malo himself once explained that the song drew inspiration from the film King Kong, the idea that even a giant can be rendered vulnerable by love. You embraced that same spirit in your version, delivering the material with the commanding, full throated vocal power that has defined your blues catalogue for over a decade, set against the Tex Mex textures of a Flamingo Pink Stratocaster that Strobel acquired directly from Perez. "My husband and I have lived these words," Shawanda says, "and I think that really shines through in this track."
Your previous album, Sing Pretty Blues, marked another major milestone in your career. Released in 2025, the album reached #5 on the Best Albums of 2025 Big Blues Chart in the US, #2 on the Canadian Blues Radio Chart, and #1 on the Indigenous Music Countdown. It also earned nominations for the Canadian Blues Music Awards (Best Album, Best Female Vocalist) and the JUNO Awards (Best Blues Album), solidifying your place as one of the most powerful and respected voices in contemporary blues.
Congratulation upon your release on July 21, 2026, your new song “Come Unto Me,” which is the first single from your newest album “Homesick Indian Blues"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axfEIcbdfnQ&list=OLAK5uy_lXw4kxk36abwzhhoV2vT4UUwCCbzsNkCU
Q. Crystal, what would you say is your secret to longevity in the music realm?
Crystal: "I think it's because I've always stayed true to myself. I've been authentic with my music, my fans and the people I work with. I work hard, I'm honest, and I appreciate everyone who's been part of this journey. I respect my gift and my role, and I honour it. Most importantly, though, I'm relentless. I don't stop. I just keep going because that's who I am."
Whether performing your own songs or reinterpreting classics, you bring raw emotion, technical mastery, and deep cultural grounding to every note. You continue to honour your Anishinaabe/ Ojibwe-Potawatomi roots while carving out a singular place in the blues world — a place defined by authenticity, passion, and a voice that refuses to be restrained. In 2012, you even launched your own record label New Sun Records, which is the first female and Indigenous-owned record label in Canada, where you continue to head the label, mentor, produce and release new music by Indigenous emerging artists from across Canada.
Crystal Shawanda Tour Dates:
July 31 @ 10:00 AM, Wikwemikong Park Centre, Wikwemikong, ON
August 6 @ 7:00 PM, Red Arrow Brewing Company, Duncan, BC
August 8 @ 6:30 PM, Maffeo Sutton Park, Nanaimo, BC
August 15 @ 6:00 PM, Berczy Park, Toronto, ON
August 29 @ 8:00 PM, Massey Fair, Massey, ON
September 5 @ 8:00 PM, Playland Amusement Park, Vancouver, BC
September 11 @ 6:00 PM, Port Credit Memorial Park, Mississauga, ON
September 12 @ 5:30 PM, Badlands Amphitheatre, Drumheller, AB
September 26 @ 7:30 PM, Palais Montcalm, Québec, QC
September 27 @ 3:00 PM, Lakefield United Church, Lakefield, ON
January 16, 2027 @ 8:00 PM, Italian Cultural Centre, Thunder Bay, ON
January 18, 2027 @ 7:30 PM, Dryden Regional Training and Cultural Centre, Dryden, ON
January 21, 2027 @ 7:30 PM, Townshend Theatre, Fort Frances, ON
