Crystal Shawanda’s first foray as a professional singer was in country music, with immediate success at age 19 after signing a U.S. record deal with RCA Nashville in 2008. Her album Dawn of a New Day, featured the single “You Can Let Go,” which reached No. 1 on the Canadian Country Album chart and No. 16 on the Billboard Top Country Albums.
The following year she left the label and created her own, New Sun Records. Her first release was 2010’s Just Like You, which won a 2013 JUNO Award for Best Aboriginal Album. She transitioned to Blues and found recognition for her vocal and songwriting talent with 2020’s Church House Blues, which won the 2021 JUNO Award for Best Blues album. The follow-up album Midnight Blues, earned Crystal a JUNO Award nomination in the Blues Album of the Year category, the 8th of her career. She became the first Indigenous woman to appear in the Top 10 of the American Billboard Blues chart upon the album’s release when it debuted at #8.
Crystal, an Ojibwe Potawatomi Indigenous singer, born in Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island in Ontario, is also decorated with multiple Aboriginal People’s Choice Awards, Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, a CCMA, a Canadian Radio Music Award. She has won six Maple Blues Awards including Indigenous Performer of the Year and Best Blues Album.