JUNO Award winning Celeigh Cardinal talks career, challenges and family support

Cree-Métis singer-songwriter Celeigh Cardinal has spent a lifetime finding her way back to music. Performing on stage since the age of four, she built her career through years of bands, pub gigs, motherhood and working a variety of jobs before committing to music full-time. Her perseverance has earned national recognition, including a JUNO Award for Indigenous Artist of the Year in 2020 and further nominations for her deeply personal songwriting. Influenced by artists including Janis Joplin, Patsy Cline and Robbie Robertson, Cardinal embraces melancholy while creating music rooted in storytelling, humor and healing. In conversation with Stacie Arden Smith, Cardinal explains success for her means making a life through music.

Celeigh Cardinal: “My name is Celeigh Cardinal. I live in Edmonton, Alberta. I’m originally from Northern Alberta. I’m part Scottish, out of Sawridge.”

CKLB: “Amazing! Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to chat with you today. You have been a long-time musician, and so I just wanted to get your perspective of how your journey has been so far. And you know, you’ve been fairly busy this this summer with festivals. Tell us all about it.”

Celeigh Cardinal: “This summer has been-it’s actually one of my less busy summers, which has been really nice because over the past, I don’t know, I would say like six years, it’s been pretty steady, and I’m not home at all, and my plants all die, and it’s too hot in my house, and my animals forget who I am. So this summer, I’ve actually been coming home and spending more time at home, and I have all of August, basically off. All my summers sort of started like mid-May, and I’m done now. I have finished all of the festivals that I’m going to play, and now I get to actually have a summer vacation this year. So that’s actually really amazing. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I haven’t had a lot of lengthy breaks. So this is going to be kind of my first big break.”

CKLB: “Do you have huge plans for your time off?”

Celeigh Cardinal: “Not really. I don’t actually. I like. I have a couple things that I want to do, but I think mainly like my nervous system just wants some routine and some calm. And I mean, really, I would love to be somewhere like Mexico or somewhere hot, but I think what I’m just going to end up doing is like going to some of the lakes around the area and just basically hanging out at home with my dog.”

CKLB: “Okay. Well, your career has been quite lengthy. You’ve been doing this since about ’99. So, in terms of your career, at what point did you know that you made it as an artist?”

Celeigh Cardinal: “Oh, that’s a good question. I don’t know that I even know that now. I feel like… I started  singing on stage when I was four, so I knew from a very young age that this was the thing that I wanted to do, and then I started playing in bands in 1999, and that’s when I started doing like more semi-professional performances. And then I had to break for a little while because I had my son in 2003, and it wasn’t until I would say 2010, 2011 I started playing music again a lot, and I was doing like pub gigs. I was doing anything that I could do so that I could continue playing music on stages because it was the thing that I knew that I wanted to do. I hated all other jobs, and I was just like, “This is the thing I have to do. I have to do this thing.

“So, I did it as much as I could while working full time and raising my son. And then it was in 2016 when I started playing shows where I was doing original material, doing more festivals, doing more like house concerts where it’s I’m not playing covers anymore. I’m playing my stuff, and I think that for me, as soon as I was making a living playing music full time, that felt like success. That felt like the thing that I wanted to do. And as I gained some accolades, it felt like varying levels of success, ways that I actually was making money, but a little bit more money, and I could sustain myself a little bit better. I could pay off my credit card debt, but like artistic success to this day, I still-it’s like chasing the dragon. Like I still want to find. It’s like sound is constantly evolving. I’m constantly evolving as I get older. I want to do other things, and I-I feel like it’s just sort of one of those things that you keep chasing.”

CKLB: “In terms of chasing, is here a goal or a wish list for you in the coming future of things you want to do?”

Celeigh Cardinal: “Yeah, I have different tours that I would like to create. There are different countries that I want to go to. I’ve done like some international travel with music, but I want to do more because honestly, music is the way that I will get to see the world because I’ll never have enough money to go on like a vacation in the Mediterranean. But if I book 10 shows, you know, in Greece or whatever, then I might be able to go and travel places.

“So, it’s sort of this career that helps me like explore at the same time. And so that’s what I like. I want to continue to do like world exploration via my career, and there’s you know I want to have more impact. I would like to create more community. I think like COVID has really impacted my social life and my capacity for social experiences, or like being out in public, or like I think it’s like really changed my awareness of like my introvert extrovert, and I now know that I require more introvert time, but I’ve almost taken that too far, and I have to like re-emerge back into society, but I’m just excited to continue to create music that feels authentic to me, and hope that like as I express myself through music, it has some sort of like impact or healing effect on other people the same way it does with me, and that’s kind of the main goal.”

CKLB: “How has your music changed from the beginning of your career to now?”

Celeigh Cardinal: “It’s changed significantly, mainly because I have started working with other people. Like I used to sit on stage and play this sort of crappy classical guitar that I got from like one of my boyfriends in like 2003, and I could play chords, but I was not very good at playing them. And as soon as I started writing with other people who were better musicians than I was, it changed what I could create because like there’s, they just have so much more availability with like chords with colors and everything, and it changed what I could sing, it changed what I could, like the where the songs could go, and I think it was collaboration that really made a big difference in my music and song writing.”

CKLB: “You were talking about having done previous jobs before. What kind of work did you do prior to being a full-time artist?”

Celeigh Cardinal: “So I like I was the type of person who hated working. I worked at a convenience store for like one day. I worked at a gas station for like three weeks. I worked at a coffee shop for a couple of weeks, and then I just ended up like not showing up one morning. And I was the only person who worked at it, so it just meant that it didn’t open that day, and I got fired. This is in my early 20s. I worked at a CD store in the mall in the Grand Prairie Mall for a little while. My friend was the manager, and she hired me as a seasonal worker, and I just never left. And then eventually, she had to fire me as well. But like, but once I started doing big girl jobs, I started working at the Grand Prairie Friendship Center.

“I was the program director there for three years, and I also have worked a couple of different times with the what used to be called the Aboriginal Head Start program. So I was a speech aide, like a TA kind of, and I worked with yeah the kids that were three to five years old, and I love that age so much. They are so sweet at that age, and I did that in Edmonton and in Grand Prairie. And then I was a bartender for like three years. So I’ve done. I used to work at Denny’s the night shift as well. So I’ve done all these like sort of different types of jobs that I never really-I mean, I love-I loved working at the at the Aboriginal Head Start program. It was-I don’t know-I met people that I that are still in my life, and like it gave me a sense of community. And especially when I came to Edmonton and didn’t really know a lot of people, like one of my closest friends is somebody that I met when I first started working there, which was like 2012 or something. And yeah, and so I did those kinds of things, but I just I never I just didn’t like doing anything really, except for singing, playing music. Yeah. Except for singing, and I just, I just had to, I had to pursue it because I didn’t want to be miserable.”

CKLB: “That’s a legitimate thing. Got to do what you love. You have also had the privilege of being nominated for a Juno and receiving Juno. What was that like?”

Celeigh Cardinal: “Yeah I was nominated for Juno 2019 and then won in 2020, and it was a weird experience because it was 2020. So I won watching it streaming on TV at my mom’s house while we were all like sort of sitting on the couch. And it was surreal. It was also surreal because it was COVID. We didn’t know what was going on, but it was also a very difficult time in my life. But at the same time, this was such a like high, high. This is something that I had been chasing like ever since I was a kid and heard about the Juno’s. My sister and I used to talk about it, and I always thought that I was going to win a JUNO Award.

“And when it happened, it felt surreal, but it also felt like, yeah, this is this is like confirmation that I’m on the right path, and this feels really good. And then when I was nominated in 2024, I didn’t win, but it was still like these are still nods, in a way from, well, from a jury, but the universe that reminds me that I that I am on the right path. It’s not something that I live and die by, but it’s just like it. It is a validation for like the immense sacrifice that my son had to do in order for me to be away, for to to like to create this career, and then just like the amount of time that my family had to put in to help with him too. So it’s been validating in that way.”

CKLB: “And definitely like it’s a very special thing when your family really assists you in chasing your dreams.”

Celeigh Cardinal: “Yeah, like it takes a village, and you know I know people who their parents don’t want them to pursue music, and they’re in their you know they’re we’re older now they’re in their late 30s, but they like they don’t see a reason why a person would do that. And meanwhile, my family shows up for my shows. They tell everybody about me. Everybody at work, at their work, knows about me. Like they brag about me. They’re proud of me. They helped me with my son when I was going through it. I can’t imagine not having them have my back like that because this is a hard pursuit. This is a very scary thing to choose that you’re going to do because for me there was no there’s no plan B like I have to figure out a way to make this work no matter what I have to be able to pay my bills I have to be able to feed my child and if I didn’t have that support from my family I don’t know that I would believe in myself the same way that I do and when I see people whose families don’t support them in that way. It’s really heartbreaking.”

CKLB: “Well, kudos to your family for definitely stepping up. That is, heck, I appreciate it.”

Celeigh Cardinal: “Yeah, yeah.”

CKLB: “One of the fun questions I like to ask is, if you had the opportunity to sit down, actually not even sit down, to stand up and sing a song to someone in history. Who would it be, and what song would you choose?”

Celeigh Cardinal: “Oh my god! Like that’s a really great question that I feel like I could sit down and think about for hours. But we don’t have hours.”

CKLB: “You’re like, hold on, I’ll be right back.”

Celeigh Cardinal: “Yeah, that’s right. I’ll call you. I’ll call you tomorrow. You know, I think somebody who I grew up and I just I don’t know. She was like everything to me, and I think I spent a lot of time sort of chasing what she was. But that was Janis Joplin. She was like one of my big influences. And honestly, I would just want to sing one of her songs with her, like maybe to her. But like, there’s just what song would it be? Maybe “Peace of My Heart” or maybe. But then there’s also Patsy Cline, because how amazing would it be to sing a song to Patsy Cline.”

CKLB: “Right?”

Celeigh Cardinal: “Ah, this is really hard.”

CKLB: “Maybe, maybe two, maybe three, top three!”

Celeigh Cardinal: “Ah, because it would be fun to sing a song by the band to Robbie Robertson. Actually, I think that might be a good one to sort of reinterpret one of his songs. There are so many songs in band that I love, but “It Makes No Diff” is one of my favorite songs in the whole wide world. And if I could sing that to Robbie Robertson, I think that would be I think that would be the one.”

CKLB: “Amazing! What does that song mean to you?”

Celeigh Cardinal: “I think it was like I. I kind of consider myself like a sad girl songwriter, and you know I want to. I remember like playing covers and people being like, “Play something we can dance to,” but like my heart has always been a little melancholy, and that’s just part of who I am. But it’s that’s not the whole performance. Like we got to tell jokes in between. We got to keep people uplifted, and we want to tell you know great stories. But like people feel sad, and the song “It Makes No Difference” is just sort of it’s like a broken-hearted love song, and it made me feel like hey I’m allowed to do this. I can like. I can sing a sad song, just and just be yourself, and the way Rick Danko sang the song was just so aching, like it was so expressive, and it just made me feel like I could do that too.”

CKLB: “I have to agree with you. I think we’re in the same boat on being melancholy, and yeah, I’ve been told not by audiences but by my mother. Sing happier songs.”

Celeigh Cardinal: “My mother was the one who said it to me too. She’s the one who said, “Play something I can dance to, and I was just like, “Girl, I’m gonna play my heart, okay?”

CKLB: “Oh, mothers!”

Celeigh Cardinal: “I know, I know.”

CKLB: “So, for all of those aspiring artists out there, whether they be from the big city of Edmonton, Vancouver, Toronto, or from the smaller remote communities, such as those in Nunavut Northwest Territories, the Yukon, what kind of words of wisdom would you like to say to them?”

Celeigh Cardinal: “I think that it’s important to do the thing that you love, no matter what. I was, like I said, working full time. I was raising my son, but I still knew that this was the thing I needed to do, and I just never stopped doing it until it got to the point where I could do it full time. So, like, if you want to do it, you have to do it in your own way, but you must just put in the hours, put in the work, do the grind, and just believe in yourself that, like, if you put in that time, you can do it because anybody can. It’s just, it just takes the work.”

Stacie Arden Smith/Native Communications Society of the NWT/Local Journalism Initiative