Luanne Hunt

Early career: 1995-2002

Hunt first gained public recognition as a recording artist in 1995, when her songs began to get frequent air play on KIK FM Radio. In 1996, she performed at the Starfest Country Music Festival at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona, California, and was subsequently featured at Starfest alongside Tammy Wynette, Billy Ray Cyrus, Toby Keith and Martina McBride.

From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, Hunt began collaborating with songwriter Lawton Jiles (who wrote six tracks for Patsy Cline). Hunt and Jiles frequently performed together at concert venues throughout Southern California, and also worked closely together on various studio-recording projects. During this time she also performed live on several occasions with American R&B singer and songwriter Nolan Porter. Further collaborations with Porter include co-writing songs for Hunt’s original musical, “Dove Lessons,” which was staged in Claremont, California, in 1997 and raised over $10,000 for the House of Ruth domestic violence shelter.

Rising success: 2003-2009

In 2003, Hunt relocated from Ontario, California, to Hesperia, California, where she teamed up with country/folk producer Eric Uglum and began recording a series of albums. In 2009, Hunt’s song “The Sun’s Coming Up Over Memphis” reached No. 10 on Nashville’s New Music Weekly country chart. “Solace in the Wind” went on to receive worldwide airplay on several terrestrial and Internet radio stations. In 2010, the track reached No. 1 on the European Country Music Association’s chart (Belgium). The same year, it reached No. 37 on the Indie World Country Chart.

2010-present

Hunt’s single “Christmas Without You” (from her 2008 album “How Christmas Feels to Me”), written by Lawton Jiles and Buster Beam, is a song that was originally commissioned by Patsy Cline in 1960. In 2008, Jiles asked Hunt to re-record the track, and in 2010 it reached No. 15 on Europe’s Hotdisc chart. In December 2011, the track topped European Country Music Association’s chart in France, Denmark, and Belgium. The same month it became the second most played song on UK Country Music Radio.

In 2015, “Christmas Without You” was declared one of the year’s top holiday songs by a female country music artist on Autostraddle Magazine. Additionally, Truckers News included it on its “Best of 2015 Country Holiday Songs” list, along with Faith Hill, Dolly Parton, Brenda Lee, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and other prominent female country music singers. The Dagens Nyheter newspaper included “Christmas Without You” on its 2015 “Best 25 Christmas Songs of All-time” list, along with Otis Redding, Merle Haggard, and Joni Mitchell.

The same year, her track “Bluer Than the Bluegrass” reached No. 5 on Hotdisc’s country music chart. The song also reached No. 17 on the Nashville-based Indie World Chart and in August 2015 was declared one of the chart’s fastest-rising singles of the month. Her tracks “Pine and the Dogwood,” “He Was There” and “There is a Fountain (Filled with Blood)” all reached No. 1 on Europe’s Hotdisc Christian chart.

Personal life

Hunt currently lives in Hesperia, California with her husband Steve Hunt, editor of the Daily Press Newspaper in Victorville, California.

Awards

Discography