Church House Blues is the most fully realized album of Crystal Shawanda’s split career. She began as an indigenous musician growing up on the Wikwemikong reserve on an island in Ontario, CA in a house filled with both blues and country music. She tried the latter first when moving to Nashville and had success doing so. Yet, in this telling quote, she was never quite comfortable in that genre, “The whole time I was singing Patsy Cline on stage, I was singing Etta James at home.” Signed to RCA in 2007, she produced a top 20 hit, sold over 50,000 copies and was even the subject of a reality show, “Crystal: Living the Dream” on CMT. She won a Juno Award for her independent effort Just Like You.
Yet, even with the more lucrative country music career ahead of her, she still felt the irresistible pull of the blues. The country’s loss is the blues gain. Shawanda wanted an outlet for her passion beyond her other worthy endeavors as a sought-after motivational speaker and as a board member of the not-for-profit Nike 7 charitable foundation. Those are serious roles, but the blues let her inner voice speak. She realized she very much needed that form of expression.
This, her fourth blues album, follows 2018’s Voodoo Woman. Just as on that well-received effort, Shawanda channels her heroes, Etta, Koko, and The Staples, taking a little bit from each to shape her own force-of-nature sound. Ah, there’s some Janis in there too as she has a goosebump-inducing scream yet it’s not at all pretentious, it’s natural. As she says, “…It’s like letting a bird out of a cage. This is what I’m supposed to do. This is how I fly.” And, in another statement, “I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m just being me. I’m done with trying to fit in.”
The backing musicians are a testament to her talent. They include session great Dave Roe on bass (Johnny Cash, Yola, CeeLo Green), the McCrary Sisters on backing vocals, Dana Robbins of Delbert McClinton’s band on sax, and Peter Keys of Lynyrd Skynyrd on keyboards. Produced by her husband, collaborator, co-writer and fine guitarist Dewayne Strobel, these tunes can send shivers, especially just two tracks in when we hear the smoldering, slow-burner “Evil Memory” where her delivery is riveting, accented by Strobel’s fiery, yet sensitive guitar lines and Keys’ piano.
She can belt, croon, cry, and scream as all facets of our vocals delivery appear throughout, from the fiery delivery of the title track, the riveting drive of “New Orleans Is Sinking,” and the assertive strains of “Rather Be Alone,” to the funky rave-up “Blame It on the Sugar,” the radio-ready hooks in “Hey Love,” and the aching emotions instilled in the deep ballads “When It Comes To Love” and the deep ballad “Bigger Than the Blues.”
This is mostly a soul-blues album, the kind made in past years in Memphis or Muscle Shoals. (i.e. “I Can’t Take It,” others) That’s the feeling you’ll take away and you will be moved.
