TORONTO—Manitoulin’s superstar singer Crystal Shawanda received the inaugural Indigenous Artist/Group of the Year Award at the 27th annual Maple Blues Awards held at the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto on February 12.
“It is an honour to be the first recipient of this new award,” Ms. Shawanda told The Expositor a day after receiving the recognition. “And it was exciting to see this new category; hopefully it will be the stepping stone in recognizing other talented Aboriginal blues artists.
Ms. Shawanda (who is from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory) explained, “originally there were hundreds of submissions for nominations for this award (and other awards presented during the event), then 40 Indigenous musicians were short-listed.”
Ms. Shawanda was with her family and on her way back home from Toronto to Nashville, Tennessee when The Expositor reached her. “We closed out the show, which was quite amazing.” Her husband Dewayne Strobel on guitar and daughter Zhaawande was on background and danced along to the music. This was the six-year-old’s debut at the Maple Blues Awards. “After a while she started to sing and asked everyone in the audience to join in, and they did. It was amazing. She said to me after the show, ‘I’ m doing the closing song with you at every show.’”
“It was definitely the best part of the night,” stated Ms. Shawanda.
On her Facebook page early Tuesday morning Ms. Shawanda wrote, “Thank you so much to the @torontobluessociety for my first Maple Blues Award as the first recipient of the Indigenous award and for inviting my family and I to close out the show! I share this award with my family, because we are dreaming this dream together. We make the sacrifices together, the time that’s spent on the road, and when I’m unsure of myself they take that all away with their love!”
“Thank you to the amazing musicians in the house band who jammed out with us, including Dewayne Strobel on guitar, Zhaawande on backgrounds and tambourine (or tangerine as she calls it), and Al Baby Webster on drums!” continued Ms. Shawanda. “We saw so many wonderful friends, made some new ones but missed seeing a lot of folks as we had to stay backstage with our little underage attendee lol! Who, by the way, danced up a storm and absolutely stole the show, I was so proud of her!”
“This morning we’re in the studio and then back home to Nashville,” said Ms. Shawanda.
Ms. Shawanda said she is working on a new album in her studio in Nashville. “We are aiming for a June release of the new album. We’re quite excited about it.” She is also writing songs with Logan Staats, a resident of Six Nations. “He will be coming to Nashville, and we will be writing songs with him and working with several other talented musicians as well over the next few months.”
