Juno Award-winning powerhouse 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 Crystal, serving as a tribute to Raul Malo, the Mavericks’ famed frontman, whose early support helped launch her career.
The story reaches back to Crystal’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, Crystal’s group built a devoted following among the songwriters, artists and producers who came to watch, Raul among them. “We never bothered Raul when he came in,” Crystal recalled. “We could see he was trying to lay low.”
That changed the night of her RCA Records showcase, when Crystal looked up and saw Raul in the crowd. His presence meant everything to a young artist who admired him precisely 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 with Eddie Perez joining the lineup, Crystal 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 Raul’s passing in December 2025. Dewayne encouraged Crystal to carry the song forward as a tribute rather than set it aside and invited Eddie Perez to be part of the recording. Eddie accepted, contributing electric and acoustic guitars and backing vocals, and he personally walked Crystal through his parts on the track.
“I was like a little kid, so nervous and excited,” she said of the session, describing Eddie sharing stories of his years alongside Raul.
Raul himself once explained that the song drew inspiration from the film King Kong, the idea that even a giant can be rendered vulnerable by love.
Crystal has embraced that same spirit in her version, delivering the material with the commanding, full throated vocal power that has defined her blues catalogue for over a decade, set against the Tex Mex textures of a Flamingo Pink Stratocaster that Dewayne acquired directly from Eddie.
“My husband and I have lived these words,” Crystal said, “and I think that really shines through in this track.”
Born and raised in Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island, Crystal signed with RCA Nashville in her early 20s and released Dawn of a New Day in 2008. 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 a Juno win 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, which she continues to run while mentoring emerging Indigenous artists.
See Crystal Shawanda live:
- July 31 – Wikwemikong Park Centre, Wikwemikong, ON
- Aug. 6 – Red Arrow Brewing Company, Duncan, BC
- Aug. 8 -Maffeo Sutton Park, Nanaimo, BC
- Aug. 15 – Berczy Park, Toronto, ON
- Aug. 29 – Massey Fair, Massey, ON
- Sept. 5 – Playland Amusement Park, Vancouver, BC
- Sept. 11 – Port Credit Memorial Park, Mississauga, ON
- Sept. 12 – Badlands Amphitheatre, Drumheller, AB
- Sept. 26 – Palais Montcalm, Québec, QC
- Sept. 27 – Lakefield United Church, Lakefield, ON
- Jan. 16 – Italian Cultural Centre, Thunder Bay, ON
- Jan. 18 – Dryden Regional Training and Cultural Centre, Dryden, ON
- Jan. 21 – Townshend Theatre, Fort Frances, ON
