April certainly showered 23-year-old MTSU graduate, veterans’ music therapist and advocate, girl-about-towner and singer-songwriter Hunter Girl with star power.

Until recently, the Winchester, Tennessee, resident has become a familiar face to locals, with a recurring run at Hank’s Honky Tonk in Murfreesboro, but when American Idol came calling, the dreamer answered and the race was on.

“Sometimes I would watch and think ‘maybe I’ll get to do that one day,’” Hunter Girl told the Pulse. “I fell in love with music when I was a little girl. I started singing when I was 3 in my grandpa’s church. I was lucky enough when I was little to know what I wanted to do.”

“It’s my fifth year doing this, and that is my favorite female country voice I’ve heard in five years,” said American Idol judge Luke Bryan upon hearing Hunter Girl audition with a rendition of Rascal Flatts’ 2014 single “Riot.”

Fellow judges Lionel Richie and Katy Perry echoed Bryan’s enthusiasm, with Perry proclaiming, “Hunter, your voice cuts through. It is like a sharp knife. It’s just so nice to listen to, you can tell the story through and through. You check so many different boxes. All you need is a shot.” And Richie’s awestruck “wow” summed the audition up.

“Oh, it went greater than I could ever possibly imagine,” Hunter Girl said humbly with a bubbly hint of lingering disbelief in her voice. “When I went in there, you know, I was nervous and excited and right when I walked in I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, they look exactly like they do on TV. They’re beautiful.’ And when I got out there I thought ‘OK, I’m about to sing this song. And hopefully it goes well.’ When I got through the first half of my audition they were excited. I did it. And then when they told me to raise it up a half step and I did it that way, it was just so cool and so incredible. And they were so kind.

“The judges are so nice. And then when Luke started running around me, it was a moment of ‘Oh my gosh, is this my life? Somebody pinch me.’ You finally get that moment that you’ve been praying for and working toward. It just felt like a full-circle kind of moment for me with the faith from the judges and especially Luke.”

A full “Riot” cover is now posted on her official YouTube channel.

The competition’s travels soon heated up in Tropical Punch style, with contestants traveling to Hawaii for outdoor song takes (“This pineapple made me very happy,” Hunter posted along with an image from the adventure). Hunter Girl’s choice was again a one-word Rascal Flatts recording. Her rendition of “Banjo” on the makeshift beach marked her first time to sing in the competition without instrumental backing.

“The funny part is, nobody in my family is actually musical,” Hunter (whose real last name is Wolkonowski, not “Girl”) shared of her background. “I have no idea where it came from. Mom always told me that God gave it to me.”

She added, though, that her family has supported her music through her entire life.

“They’ve pushed me . . . they’ve had faith in me throughout everything that I’ve been a part of,” the musician said. “They’re such cheerleaders for me and I love them.”

Her mama said she’d knock ’em dead. And now Hollywood doesn’t seem so far.

The showers of praise continue to pour: following the audition, Hunter was surprised with a coveted AI platinum ticket during a performance at Luke Bryan’s downtown Nashville bar (by Bryan’s request, of course). She soon surrendered that shiny silver to skip the genre challenge round (the three platinum ticket winners performed Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” together); Hunter Girl came back swinging in April’s first weekend for a fittingly-titled duet with contestant Cole Ritter, singing Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams.”

Both contestants were given the go-ahead to follow their dreams even farther.

Hunter is from East Tennessee (Gruetli-Laager) and appropriately she has played out those roots perfectly on ABC. As one of her personal idols, Dolly Parton, says in her just-released project, Run Rose Run: Stick to my guns and have a plan, woman up and take it like a man.

And that is exactly what Hunter Girl’s done.

“I grew up about five minutes from my grandparents. So I would listen to artists like Dolly Parton. She’s somebody I really look up to. Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings . . . I heard all the good stuff. And we’d always go to Dollywood, every year. That was something I looked forward to, getting to hear all of the bluegrass and Christian music and country music. And I was like, I want to be like Dolly Parton when I grow up! I want a roller coaster one day! And I would eat buckets of kettle corn with my grandparents and listen to country music,” Hunter Girl said “They had really great taste and I had a lot of good people to look up to.”

Speaking of looking up, country artist Deana Carter (who just so happens to have an album entitled Girl) was so impressed she recently reached out to Hunter and wanted to work with her.

“She had seen my audition,” Hunter said. “And she said ‘I just wanted to talk to you and to mentor you for a little bit. I talked to her for about 20 or 30 minutes. She gave me some really good advice. And she’s somebody I’ve looked up to for a long time. . . . Talking to her put a lot of peace on my heart. She just made me feel all fuzzy and at home, like I was talking to one of my kinfolk.”

Elsewhere, the roller coaster of life took Hunter to Winchester at age 12, then on to the MTSU recording program (from which she is a 2020 graduate) to working with Operation Song and, now, Freedom Sings USA, creating songs for and with veterans. Through involvement in the latter, she ended up being invited to do an opening ceremony performance at the Charlie and Hazel Daniels Veterans Center in 2018.

“My perspective on songwriting changed a lot when I started working with veterans and writing songs with them. It made me realize that not everybody gets to do this and have this moment where they get to get their thoughts out. I recognize that, and the way that music can heal people,” she said. “It’s how other people are able to connect to you as a person and as an artist. And that’s why I enjoy songwriting. When I’m writing with veterans about things that they went through while they were serving, sometimes they totally change. They come in really reserved. And after they write this song with me, or one of the other songwriters that I work with, sometimes they come out a completely different person.”

Those who want to hear more of Hunter Girl’s music can check out her One Day EP, a collection of five songs that she describes as pieces of her story, and what she wants to tell the world.

“I was really excited to do that [record],” she said. “I put my money into it and just went for it. All of the songwriters and producers and everyone—they really made that happen in a small amount of time.”

Those Hollywood nights and those Hollywood hills? They look so right they can give you chills. But when the lights go down on Tinseltown, all you need is love. So stay tuned to find out just how May might flower.

Find more music from and information on Hunter Girl and links to her social media sites at linktr.ee/huntergirlmusic. Vote for American Idol contestants at idolvote.abc.com.

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Idol Estrogen: The Tennessee Three for Season 20

Native Kentuckian Oliva Faye (a “sweetheart,” according to Wolkonowski) has built up an impressive residency of sorts in recent years at Puckett’s Grocery and Restaurant on the Murfreesboro Public Square, among other popular venues in the Middle Tennessee area. Though the American Idol curtain officially closed for this Gold-ticketer during “Showstoppers” night in mid-March, her ambition hasn’t slowed. Faye still has plenty of sway in her steps and plenty of feelgood shows in the Middle Tennessee area, taking that feelgood one step further with her new official video, “Singin’ Hallelujah.”

For Top-20 finalist Elli Rowe, the after-show slowdown is also less of a stop and more of a “pause.” Around this time in 2021 the young college student was playing guitar and singing her soul out for onlookers at a Just Love “Coffee and Chords” event at Murfreesboro’s Fountains at Gateway. Now Rowe’s continuing to row, row, row her musical boat and she hopes you’ll merrily download and stream her recent release, “Pause.” She comes from a musical family and, in addition to the guitar, she can also play piano, mandolin, banjo and fiddle. She is a two-time winner of the Minnesota Bluegrass & Old-Time Music Association’s annual talent contest and cites Alison Krauss, Molly Tuttle and Rhonda Vincent among her musical inspirations. Keep up with Elli Rowe at instagram.com/ellirowe.

Elli Rowe and Hunter Girl

Parton me—according to current standings as of press time, Hunter Girl is officially in the season’s Top 10. Go, girl! Fortuitously enough, when the artist spoke with the Pulse she gushed over her love for Dolly Parton, and as luck would have it, two of the three judge-chosen songs from which she had to select for that big Top 10 decision came from that same East Tennessee queen. Choosing the cinematic “9 to 5” proved to be a success on the small screen.