Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory citizen nominated for JUNO award in best blues album category

By Sam Laskaris

NASHVILLE – Crystal Shawanda has already won a pair of JUNO awards in her career.

But Shawanda, a citizen of Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory, believes winning another one this year would be even more special.

Shawanda’s latest work, titled Sing Pretty Blues, is nominated for the best blues album at the Canadian awards. Winners will be announced at The Junos ceremony, which will be held on Mar. 29 in Hamilton.

Sing Pretty Blues is the first album Shawanda has released under her own record label, New Sun Music.

Shawanda, who has lived in Nashville for the past 23 years, was caught off guard by her latest JUNO nomination.

“I was very surprised because there’s a lot of amazing blues albums this year,” she said. “And then it was my first release back on my own record label. So, it was kind of nerve-wracking, wondering, are we doing this the right way?…It’s kind of like learning how to walk again and doing things by ourselves on our own and putting our own team together. So, I was really excited and grateful what we did was recognized.”

Shawanda won her first JUNO back in 2012 in the best Aboriginal album of the year category. Her second JUNO was in 2021 for best blues album.

“We didn’t know what was going to happen with this release,” Shawanda said of Sing Pretty Blues. “I feel like we’ve put together this little team. It was, like, kind of like running through an invisible finish line.”

Shawanda said she will definitely attend this year’s awards ceremony in Hamilton.

“When I was nominated for my last album, we didn’t go because I was on tour in Florida,” she said. “This year, I’m making it a priority because [this album] was a family affair.”

Shawanda’s husband, Dewayne Strobel, produced the album and also mixed and engineered it.

And the couple’s eight-year-old daughter, Zhaawande, sang background vocals on several of the songs on the album.

“I really want us to go and have matching outfits and really celebrate this moment in our life and in our music together as a family,” Shawanda said.

Though she has been based in Nashville for more than two decades now, Shawanda does travel back to her First Nation located on Manitoulin Island.

“We went up to Wiky actually for December,” she said. “We were there for like three weeks. We had originally planned to go for a week and a half, but we just couldn’t bear to leave. We were having so much fun.”

As for her latest album, Shawanda said the title track is her favourite.

“This song was inspired by a conversation I had with a photographer,” she said. “I was coming off the stage and he was like, ‘Oh, that was an amazing show, Crystal. I think I got some good pictures of you. But I’m not really sure. You don’t really sing pretty and so sometimes, it’s hard to get a good shot of you.’”

Shawanda said she was puzzled by the comment.

“I decided to take it as a compliment because he’s right,” he said. “I don’t sing pretty. When people come to my live show, they’ll see that I scrunch my face, make all these crazy faces when I’m singing because it’s not just a show. Every song, I’m healing a different part of myself and healing is not always pretty…And I want to encourage other people to embrace all the parts of themselves as well. That’s the commonality of all the songs on this album, as they’re all about a lot of strength and resilience.”

Another song that holds significant meaning for Shawanda is Changes, the cover of the Black Sabbath song from the early 1970s. The song is dedicated to a former Wiikwemkoong citizen, who became a close Shawanda friend.

“Unfortunately, she fell into addiction and overdosed,” Shawanda said. “And so, I wanted to do that song because it was really good medicine for me. I listened to it a lot when I was grieving her loss, and so we wanted to put it on the album because I wanted her spirit to know that she mattered and that we really did love her and care about her.”

Sing Pretty Blues was released last spring, a couple of months before Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne died.

“We released the album last spring,” Shawanda said. “I had no idea that his health was in that condition. Growing up, one of my brothers used to listen to Black Sabbath a lot, so that was always one of my favourite songs. And Ozzy has always been one of my favourite vocalists ever since I was a kid.”