Country singer is back

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After an eight-year absence from the music scene, Priscilla Morin is marking her return with a Canadian Aboriginal Music Award nomination and a performance at Toronto's Skydome.

Morin is nominated in the Best Country Album category and is scheduled to perform during the awards show Nov. 24.

Morin is nominated for her CD Waiting For You, released in July.

"I'm shocked. I'm honored to even be recognized, to be nominated," Morin said.

Other nominees in the category are Slowhand, for the CD Stranded, and C-Weed Band for Run as One.

Morin's music career began in 1986 when she won the CFCW/Coors Light Country Star Search competition, and it ended in 1992. Morin left the music business because she wasn't happy with the way her career was going.

"I decided to quit because it didn't look like it was going anywhere. I was with an agency out of Edmonton and they were only interested in the money, and it didn't matter where they put me, to them. I was playing all these bars, and places I don't even care to mention. It got boring, and I was tired of playing to drunks, people who didn't care what you sounded like or what you sang as long as there was music to go along with their alcohol. And I just wanted to come home and get a nine-to-five job or a normal job and go to bed at night and wake up in the morning like everybody else, like normal people," she said.

It was only after repeated urging from a family friend that Morin took to the stage again.

"We set up this nice lounge act, cozy place. The people were sober, and it was so nice. I just got a really good response and it started going from there," she said.

Distribution of the album so far has been limited - the CD is for sale at a few local shops, and through her website. And in terms of airplay, the CD hasn't received as much attention as her earlier efforts.

"It's not receiving the same airplay as when I released 'Cheyenne'," Morin said, refering to her 1987 hit which put her in the top 10 on the charts in Canada and New Zealand, and earned her a nomination for Female Vocalist of the Year in the Alberta Recording Industry Assocation (ARIA) awards.

Most of the songs on her next CD will be ones Morin has written herself.

"If nothing else happens after this, I'm proud of the work we've done on Waiting For You, and I'm just happy that people are buying them, and that I can share," Morin told Sweetgrass.

As for her upcoming performance at the music awards, Morin is trying not to focus on that part of being a nominee.

"I try not to think about it because if I think about it I'm going to get so scared and freaked out, so I'll just think about it when I'm there," she said.