HunTer in line for another international award

The husky-voiced country songstress and songwriter HunTer Leite, who grew up in Benoni, anticipates bringing another international award back to South Africa.

She has been nominated in the category World Artist of the Year and Album of the Year, at the Josie Music Awards.

This competition is in its fifth year, and this year it will take place in September at the Celebrity Theatre in Dollywood, a theme park that is the hobbyhorse of the queen bee of country music, Dolly Parton.

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The Josie Music Awards is known as the biggest celebration of independent artists in the world, and is also endorsed by Parton.

HunTer was startled by this nomination as she did not enter her country album, Kicking up Dust, for this competition.

“I was nominated by several folk in the USA as well as from around the world.

“Preston Taylor, the president of the Texas Sounds International Country Music Awards, was one of the people who nominated my album,” an excited HunTer said.

When she received the good news, she was in her car, driving her daughter to school.

“My manager was in the car with me and received an email on her cellphone.

“She screamed at the top of her lungs, ‘You are in…’ I thought someone was going to crash into us or something.”

This nomination came only two years after HunTer was crowned as the Best Female Vocalist at the Texas Sounds International Country Music Awards 2017.

HunTer has been nominated for several different categories for these awards: Best Female Vocalist, Best Production, Best Original Song, Best Personality and Best Entertainer of the year.

The judges lauded her voice as a “powerful, melodious instrument that impressed and moved the audience.”

HunTer is also a locally acclaimed singer-songwriter.

She won two South African Country Music Artists Foundation Awards (SACMAF) in 2018 in the categories Best Original Song of the Year and Best Songwriter/Composer of the Year.

“I have never been to Dollywood and I am going to enjoy the rite of musical passion and, of course, the joyrides,” said HunTer.

“I am also planning to perform at a few local bars and venues in Tennessee, Nashville, Jefferson and West Virginia.

“And perhaps, I would be able to meet Dolly and take a picture with her.”

Although HunTer’s voice has an overarching country feel, she is still a very versatile singer, and comfortable to sing in different genres.

She released an Afrikaans single, Damn Sexy, a couple of months back, and it paraded on various radio stations.

Her motto is “sing to live and live to sing.”

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