There was a surprise entertainer at Desiree Dorion’s wedding not long ago

— a five-year-old girl singing her lungs out, and badly.

"I was so embarrassed," she says. Sounds mean, but it isn’t. She blames an uncle, who managed to locate a tape recording of a song she wrote and taped when

she was little more than a toddler. Wedding guests had quite a laugh.

Desiree has been singing all her life, trying to make a go of it as a First Nations entertainer. And just in case, she does have a "day job."

She’s a member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN) and a lawyer practicing

family law in Dauphin with the Legal Aid Society. She defends parents whose kids are apprehended by Child and Family Services. "I’m a realist and you need something to fall back on."

But her real love is music. Country music. "My mom sings horrible and dad couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. But country music has always been big in our family.

"It’s a crazy business," she said. Right now, she and her husband Wade

Houle, a Dauphin high school teacher, are working hard to promote her new country

album, Soul Back Jack.

Her first song released from the album, says Wade — the title track — is quickly

climbing the National Aboriginal Music Countdown.

Desiree says she released her first album, All You Gotta Do Is Try, at age 13 with her single My Destiny reaching the Canadian Country Music Charts.

It was "tough then. Trying to get airspace for a 13-year-old First Nations person was almost impossible.

Now, "it’s crazy how much support there is for Aboriginal artists."

At age 19, she was a social worker at Shamattawa, where she "saw and experienced

a lot of inequities.. and it aggravated me" that she couldn’t change things, make

things better. She turned instead to law.

"I’ve chosen the right path." She and Wade live in Dauphin because they got "citied out" in Winnipeg. Soul Back Jack is about "a woman who gets her mojo back," said Desiree. It’s available at CD Plus stores across Canada, and at CDBaby.com online On the Aboriginal music scene, Desiree greatly admires the group Eagle and Hawk, and singer Tracy Bone. Tracy and Desiree competed as youths, and "she’s always been a big supporter of me."

Desiree’s myspace website describes her as purely country, singing with "passion, vulnerability and sass."

"Desiree’s music has given her the opportunity to share stages with Charlie

Major, Tom jackson, Susan Aglukark, Rita Coolidge, George Canyon and Jake Matthews.

In 2002, Desiree sang the theme song for the North American Indigenous

Games which she performed at the opening and closing ceremonies."

In Soul Back Jack, "Her songs take listeners on a journey of laughter, loss,

remembrance and fun." You can check out some of Desiree’s music and bio at www.myspace.com/desireedorion.