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Shakti Hayes

Biography
Shakti Hayes is a Plains Cree woman from Saskatchewan who has been playing and singing since she first picked up a bass guitar in the twelfth grade. Since then, she has performed with Gerald Charlie and The Black Owl Blues Band, with Juno-nominated artist Wayne Lavallee and with CAMA Award winning aboriginal women's ensemble Nitsiwakun (Sandy Scofield and Lisa Sazama), among others. Shakti grew up listening to Otis redding, Van Morrison and Pink Floyd on her father's LPs; she also finds inspiration from singer-songwriters like Luncinda Williams, Buffy Saint Marie and Rob Thomas. On her new album 'Touchwood Hills', she weaves those influences together with a long standing oral tradition, setting her own personal stories to powerful music. On the title track, she sings about a journey back to the reservation where her mother was born and raised, and her discovery there of a family and history she didn't know she had. In 'Buffalo Drop', the story of a brother who died young is set against the backdrop of her people's ancestral hunting grounds in the Qu'Appelle Valley. Shakti writes songs that are as evocative as they are unpredictable...songs that get into the listener's head and heart, and stay there. Joy, raw pain, healing memory...when Shakti Hayes sings, she bears her soul - and people listen.