Hunter Kelly
Music Journalist/Author
Music journalist. Untethered Southerner Substack editor. Author of an upcoming narrative nonfiction book about The Judds. I write about country music, Southern culture, and LGBTQ+ representation.
About
Hunter Kelly is a journalist, broadcaster, and author who has covered country music and Southern culture for 25 years. He is writing a narrative nonfiction book about The Judds for Liveright / W.W. Norton and publishes Untethered Southerner on Substack. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Billboard, Spin, The Hollywood Reporter, MSNOW, Nashville Scene, and Apple News.From 2006 to 2015 he was the Nashville correspondent for ABC News and ABC News Radio, interviewing everyone from Taylor Swift and Katy Perry to Garth Brooks, Merle Haggard, and Loretta Lynn, with reporting featured on World News Tonight, Good Morning America, and ABCNews.com.From 2020 to 2024 he hosted and programmed Apple Music’s Proud Radio, an hour-long show spotlighting LGBTQ+ artists in country and Americana; guests included Dolly Parton, Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Orville Peck, Jason Isbell, Reba McEntire, Allison Russell, and TJ Osborne. In 2022 he created Neon Songbook: The Judds , an eight-hour Apple Music series featuring new interviews with Wynonna and Naomi Judd, and his Rolling Stone remembrance of Naomi Judd was the magazine’s 12th most-read story of that year.From 2020 to 2022 he hosted an interview series for New York’s 92nd Street Y with Wynonna, Brandi Carlile, Brandy Clark, Willie Nelson, and Yola.He has been interviewed by or featured in CNN, The New Yorker, Variety, NPR, The Washington Post, People, Billboard, Out, The Advocate, Pollstar, and is quoted extensively in Marissa R. Moss’s Her Country.
Contact
Get in touch. Press, speaking, and story inquiries. Radio and interview samples available on request.
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