Desiree Dorion grew up in Dauphin, Manitoba, home to the famed Dauphin Country Fest, Canada’s longest-running country music festival. It was there that she first dreamed of becoming a singer.
“When I was a kid, I would often ride my bike to the festival site,” she recalled. “I would make my way to the mainstage, […] I would walk backstage, […] I would imagine myself putting my makeup on, fluffing my hair […] and then I would walk out. I would imagine the crowd […] cheering my name and cheering for me, and I would walk out, and I would pretend to play for 10,000 to 15,000 people […] and there would be no one there but me.”
This dream became a reality, as Dorion said it gave her the confidence to turn her passion into a career. Since launching her career, much of her music has charted on the Canadian country music top 100 charts. She has had several #1 songs on the Indigenous Music Countdown and received airplay and recognition from some of Canada’s best-known radio stations and media outlets.
She is also a three-time winner and nine-time nominee at the Manitoba Country Music Awards and, in 2014, received a JUNO Award nomination for Aboriginal Album of the Year.
Despite this, Dorion remarked that she has never felt like she has “made it” in the industry.
“If there’s ever a moment in my career where I think that I’ve made it, then I really haven’t made it anywhere,” she chuckled. “I feel like every success is just moving the needle a little bit further.”
Dorion released her seventh album, Remember Your Name, in September. The photoshoot for the album cover, in which Dorion is fully nude with a guitar in front of her, preceded its recording. The album, she said, mimics the cover, as she wished for the album to be “completely naked,” raw and vulnerable.
The album centres around personal themes. “Greta,” featuring Métis roots artist Amanda Rhéaume, addresses domestic violence, while “Ghost” explores the end of a relationship and moving on from it.
The deep and authentic lyrics are complemented by Dorion’s transition from a mainstream country sound to the roots/Americana genre. On this genre shift, she said, “I knew that it was time for a shift, and it’s been really liberating […] I feel like you have more liberties as a writer in the Americana world.”
A member of Opaskwayak Cree Nation, Dorion is also an advocate for the Indigenous community. Many of her collaborators on Remember Your Name are Indigenous, which she said was “very intentional,” as she sought to involve Indigenous musicians in a well-rounded, respectful way.
Outside of music, she serves as an ambassador for the Gord Downie and Chanie Wenjack Fund, and hosted the Canadian Country Music Association’s Achimotak series, which focused on Indigenous musical artistes.
On her advocacy and her position as an Indigenous musician, Dorion said, “I think I’m most proud of the space I have taken up. […] It’s a really cool thing to just pause and reflect sometimes, because you just never know who you’re impacting. When I was growing up there wasn’t really anybody I could look to as someone who I thought represented me.”
She hopes that there are young people who see themselves as worthy of occupying that same space, advising them to hone their craft, develop a thick skin and have a good work ethic in general.
Dorion’s Remember Your Name is available now. She plans to release another single on Oct. 11 and is taking bookings for the holiday season and 2025 festivals.
