Crystal Shawanda

These days the singer, songwriter, and guitarist Crystal Shawanda calls Nashville, TN, home, yet she entered the world as a full-blooded Ojibwe on the Wikwemikong reserve on Manitoulin Island in Ontario, Canada. Her path from that remote beginning to the threshold of country-music prominence possesses the dramatic arc of a Hollywood script. She began composing and singing almost as soon as she could hold a guitar, and by age eleven she was already performing at any venue that would book her. Recognition followed swiftly; in 2007 RCA Records Nashville offered her a contract, and she promptly issued the single “You Can Let Go.” Far from an overnight ascent, the entire sequence was captured on camera in the six-part CMT series Crystal: Living the Dream, which premiered at the beginning of 2008.