JUNO Award-winning blues singer Crystal Shawanda returns with Homesick Indian Blues, her latest studio album on her own New Sun Records. The Ojibwe Potawatomi artist, who grew up on the Wikwemikong reserve on Manitoulin Island, Ontario, has spent the last several years carving out a reputation as one of the most powerful voices in contemporary blues, following 2020’s JUNO-winning Church House Blues and 2022’s chart-topping Midnight Blues. The ten-track record is anchored by longtime collaborator DeWayne Strobel on guitar and bass, with Nioshi Jackson on drums, Peter Keys on piano and organ, Stephen Hanner on harmonica, and Chris West on horns, plus a guest turn from Eddie Perez on guitar for “Come Unto Me,” a tribute to the Mavericks’ Raul Malo, with Stan Miczek on bass and Al “Baby” Webster on drums for that track. Background vocals come courtesy of Quisha Wint, Zhaawande Strobel, Lauren Anderson, Rissi Palmer, and Laurie Webb, alongside Shawanda and Perez themselves. At its heart, the album is about longing and distance, the ache of life on the road pulled against the pull of home and heritage, filtered through the grit and soul of deep blues songwriting.
Track-by-Track
“Homesick Indian Blues”
“Cut Through the Wind”
Track two opens with a classic soul-blues feel, organ setting the groove right from the intro. It’s the kind of song that pulls you in to sing along, until you realize you simply can’t keep up with Shawanda, so you let her do all the work instead.
“I’ll Play the Blues for You”
Track three is the kind of song built to fill any venue, whether it’s a cavernous arena or an intimate room where you’re lucky enough to be standing just a few feet from the stage. It fills the space either way, thanks largely to the way Shawanda delivers it. Her presence here feels equal to the instrumentation rather than carried by it, a genuine partnership between voice and band rather than one simply propping up the other.
“Come Unto Me”
This tribute to the Mavericks’ Raul Malo, featuring Eddie Perez on guitar, is intriguing from the start, largely down to the key it’s written in, which lends the track a mysterious, slightly unsettled quality. Rather than staying put, the song evolves as it goes, building from that mysterious opening into something genuinely dramatic by its close.
“Breaking Us in Pieces”
This track maximizes the effect of Shawanda’s country roots, landing as a heartfelt, heart-tugging blend of country, blues, and rock that reaches a feeling none of those genres could quite summon alone. It’s also impossible not to savor the occasional rasp in her voice here, a little texture that makes the performance all the more delicious.
“I Think I Love You Too Much”
Another solid entry, this one allows Shawanda’s vocals to display their flexibility and range, though through subtle shifts rather than dramatic leaps between registers. That restraint makes the performance feel effortless, control shown through nuance rather than showmanship.
“You Win Again”
This one is all about the emotion, with heartbreak sitting right at its core. Shawanda leans into that raw ache rather than dressing it up, letting the hurt speak plainly through the performance.
“I’m On Your Way Home”
This track brings the vibe of a live blues club right into your speakers, the room sound, performance energy, and arrangement all conspiring to sell the illusion. You could swear you were there in person.
“Never Ever”
This track captures a performance that feels sung to satisfy the critic within Shawanda herself rather than any outside audience. You can tell she’s singing purely for her own pleasure here, and the result is a genuine pleasure to listen to as well.
“The Whole World’s Got the Blues”
The closer is spellbinding, a fitting way to send off a record this rich. It’s a fitting song, too, for an artist who defies most genre boundaries, pulling country, blues, rock, and soul together into something entirely her own right up to the final note.
The title track opens the record, and the first thing that strikes you is Shawanda’s voice. It arrives raw and commanding, immediately setting the emotional temperature for everything that follows. Stephen Hanner’s harmonica winds through the arrangement as a sympathetic frame for that voice, doing a genuinely fine job of supporting it without ever competing for the spotlight. It’s a smart opening statement: the song makes clear from its first notes that this is a vocal showcase, with the band working in service of the heat Shawanda brings to every line.
Across these ten tracks, Homesick Indian Blues plays like a showcase built entirely around what Crystal Shawanda can do with her voice, from the heat she brings to the opening title track to the spellbinding close on “The Whole World’s Got the Blues.” Her band, anchored by DeWayne Strobel and filled out with Peter Keys, Stephen Hanner, Chris West, and company, never fights for the spotlight; instead they build frames sturdy enough to hold whatever she brings to each song, whether that’s a rasp-edged country-blues ache, a dramatic shift of key, or the unmistakable feel of a live club performance. It’s an album that refuses easy genre labels, moving freely between blues, country, rock, and soul, and in doing so captures an artist who sounds, track after track, like she’s singing purely for the joy of it. That joy, more than anything, is what makes Homesick Indian Blues such a rewarding listen from start to finish.
