Congratulations are in order for a Cree musician who brought home some hardware at the 2024 Juno Awards Opening Night Saturday evening.
Joel Wood, from Maskwacis, Alta., was ecstatic to find himself even nominated for Traditional Indigenous music group or artist of the year. Winning his first Juno award was a dream come true for the musician and his community.
“I really feel it’s not only representing myself, or my wife or our family, but it’s representing our indigenous people as a whole,” said Wood. “Our music is the original music of this land. It was here long before any of the other instruments arrived here, the fiddle of the guitar, the piano – we already had music.”
“It’s been here, it’s still here. And it’s always going to be here.”
The 35-year-old has been performing professionally since he was nine years old with a collective called The Northern Cree. …