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Sea to Sky's country music among the best

Small Town Runaway, Dakota Pearl in BCCMA Top 10 Spotlight competition
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Shine a light Whistler's Small Town Runaway, a.k.a. Christine Sherrington, has made it to the semi-finals of the BC Country Music Association Spotlight competition. Photo submitted

Whistler's Small Town Runaway and Pemberton's Dakota Pearl have made Sea to Sky country music stand out.

Both have reached the semi-finals in the annual BC Country Music Association (BCCMA) Spotlight performance contest as two of the top 10 country acts in British Columbia.

Christine Sherrington, a.k.a. Small Town Runaway, says the 10 finalists have this week submitted acoustic videos of their current single.

"We made it through the first round, then there is another round with the final five performers in a live show," Sherrington says.

"It has all happened really quickly."

The show takes place at Gabby's Country Cabaret in Langley on May 4.

One act is then selected from the final five by the BCCMA in mid-May, to be one of 10 national contenders competing in an online poll contest run by the Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) in June.

From that final 10, one winner gets to perform at a CCMA event during Country Music Week 2017 in Saskatoon in Sept.

Sherrington had to submit two songs

"It was a nice little surprise to get through. Dakota Pearl has more recognition than I do, so what is exciting for me is that fact that it means I will now be a little more on the radar when it comes to the BCCMA," Sherrington says.

"There is so much talent coming out of B.C. and the rest of Canada. In B.C. there are so many crazy-talented country bands coming up right now. So it is so cool to get into this top 10 with many of them.

"I think my music catches attention because I have a different approach to other female country artists. For one thing, my voice is lower and has a rasp, and I tend to write darker songs. There's quite a pop curve to country right now, and I tend to write more that is on the rock or bluesy side of country."

Sherrington is currently working on her first EP with musicians Anthony Fiddler and Ryan Stead.

The other finalist, Adam Leggett, vocalist for Dakota Pearl, says the band also made the top 5 a year ago.

The band's two submissions came off its EP Big Mountain Music.

"In a way, it's about time for two bands from here to make the top 10. There are so many talented musicians from our area and someone deserves to be recognized," Leggett says.

"Christine is amazing. She's a great songwriter and totally deserves to be in it."