It's no exaggeration to say country artist Crystal Shawanda has been on the stage all her life. With her new album Just Like You, she is moving forward by looking inward, taking parts of her life and using them for song. She will be in Yorkton on November 29 at the Painted Hand Casino as part of her Christmas tour.
The show will have a variety of music, but with a focus primarily on the Christmas side. Shawanda says that it's a inspiring time of year for her, and she views her job getting everyone back into the Christmas spirit through song. She believes that a good Christmas song can pull people up from the stresses of the season.
"That's what it's about for me, just spreading a little good cheer," she says.
"For me, that's what I would always look forward to at Christmas, we got to pull out the Christmas music. It just helps you forget all the bad stuff, all the problems, and everything seems so much better. I'm a positive person, and I believe happiness is a choice and music is very important at Christmas time."
Right now Shawanda is also touring with Just Like You, and she describes the it as picking up the torch of her previous release, Dawn of a New Day.
"It digs a little deeper. There are those songs that make you cry, and then there are those songs that make you want to turn it up and drive really fast."
The songs draw from Shawanda past, whether it's paying her dues, leaving home at an early age, and her family. She says performing from a very young age has changed her outlook and inspired the direction she took as an artist.
"I had my own band by the time I was 11, and because of that I grew up really fast. Looking back, that's probably the hardest sacrifice, giving up my childhood for the dream. Yet, looking back, I wouldn't have it any other way, it's all who I am today."
While her life on the stage is a big part of her sound, and has been a part of many of her songs, Shawanda says that she pulls from many different areas of her life, and that makes for a wide spectrum of music when she's writing and recording.
"It's always evolving my sound, my perspective. Depending on my mood that day that determines my take when I'm writing."
Part of that perspective is Shawanda's own influences, and as an example she does many acoustic covers of a wide variety of songs, from doo wop standards from the 1950s to modern hits like Bruno Mars, recording and releasing them online, as well as performing them live.
"For me, that's how it started, I was riding in a car with my mom and loved the song so much I started to sing along. Music still has that impact on me."
"We can just learn to be better musicians and better human beings. We listen to a song and we learn a new perspective, we consider a new point of view, and you learn new chords and a new melody and you learn your voice can hit those notes... All those things you discover and make us better musicians and artists."
Whatever influences she may have, however, Shawanda says that country music will always be her genre, because those were the songs that made her realize how important music was to the people around her.
"For me, it's the sincerity of it all. It's just so honest, so brutally honest, even though other genres of music are as well. For me, every time I turn on country music radio it's just song after song that seems like it's about my life, from the time I was a kid all the way to now. Watching how it helped other people, how it helped my parents through a lot of tough times, and my grandparents. At a young age, I noticed that everybody leaned on music as if it was a friend. When you were feeling down, mad, or happy, there were certain albums you reached for, and it was always the country records that got them through the toughest times."
Shawanda will be at the Painted Hand Casino on November 29. Tickets for the show will be $35. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., with supper at 6:30 and the show to follow. Shawanda also encourages people to visit her website at www.crystalshawanda.co.
