Award-winning Ojibwe and Potawatomi artist Crystal Shawanda has released "Come Unto Me," a heartfelt cover of The Mavericks' classic and the first single from her forthcoming album 'Homesick Indian Blues'.
The recording carries deep personal meaning for Shawanda, serving as a tribute to Raul Malo, the Mavericks' famed frontman, whose early support helped launch her career.
The story reaches back to Shawanda's earliest days in Nashville, when she and her band played for tips in the back room upstairs at Tootsies on Broadway, a room reserved at the time for acts the industry had given up on.
Performing a mix of pre 1975 country, blues and rock and roll, Shawanda's group built a devoted following among the songwriters, artists and producers who came to watch, Malo among them.
"We never bothered Raul when he came in," Shawanda recalled. "We could see he was trying to lay low."
That changed the night of her RCA Records showcase, when Shawanda looked up and saw Malo in the crowd.
His presence meant everything to a young artist who admired him because he never fit the country music mould.
"That support, that interest, it inspired me and encouraged me," she said, calling it one of the breadcrumbs that told her to keep going.
When The Mavericks reunited years later when Eddie Perez joined the lineup, Shawanda and her husband, producer and guitarist Dewayne Strobel, began dreaming of one day collaborating with the band whose records had shaped them both.
That dream took on new urgency when the couple began working up "Come Unto Me" just before Malo's passing in December 2025.
Strobel encouraged Shawanda to carry the song forward as a tribute rather than set it aside, and invited Perez to be part of the recording.
Perez accepted, contributing electric and acoustic guitars and backing vocals, and personally walked Shawanda through his parts on the track.
"I was like a little kid, so nervous and excited," she said of the session, describing Perez sharing stories of his years alongside Malo.
Malo once explained the song drew inspiration from the film King Kong, and the idea that even a giant can be rendered vulnerable by love.
Shawanda has embraced that same spirit in her version, delivering the material with the commanding, full throated vocal power which has defined her blues catalogue for over a decade, set against the Tex Mex textures of a Flamingo Pink Stratocaster that Strobel acquired directly from Perez.
"My husband and I have lived these words, and I think that really shines through in this track," she said.
Born and raised in Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island, Shawanda signed with RCA Nashville in her early twenties and released 'Dawn of a New Day' in 2008, the highest-charting album by a Canadian Indigenous country artist in the SoundScan era.
She became the first Indigenous woman to win the Canadian Country Music Award for Female Artist of the Year in 2009, before shifting fully into the blues, a run that has produced JUNO wins for 'Church House Blues' and a Billboard Blues Chart Top 10 debut with 'Midnight Blues.'
Her most recent album, 'Sing Pretty Blues,' topped the Indigenous Music Countdown in 2025 and earned JUNO and Canadian Blues Music Award nominations.
In 2012, she founded New Sun Records, the first female and Indigenous owned record label in Canada, which she continues to run while mentoring emerging Indigenous artists.
Crystal Shawanda tour dates:
July 31 @ 10:00 AM, Wikwemikong Park Centre, Wikwemikong, ON
August 6 @ 7:00 PM, Red Arrow Brewing Company, Duncan, BC
August 8 @ 6:30 PM, Maffeo Sutton Park, Nanaimo, BC
August 15 @ 6:00 PM, Berczy Park, Toronto, ON
August 29 @ 8:00 PM, Massey Fair, Massey, ON
September 5 @ 8:00 PM, Playland Amusement Park, Vancouver, BC
September 11 @ 6:00 PM, Port Credit Memorial Park, Mississauga, ON
September 12 @ 5:30 PM, Badlands Amphitheatre, Drumheller, AB
September 26 @ 7:30 PM, Palais Montcalm, Québec, QC
September 27 @ 3:00 PM, Lakefield United Church, Lakefield, ON
January 16, 2027 @ 8:00 PM, Italian Cultural Centre, Thunder Bay, ON
January 18, 2027 @ 7:30 PM, Dryden Regional Training and Cultural Centre, Dryden, ON
January 21, 2027 @ 7:30 PM, Townshend Theatre, Fort Frances, ON
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