11-year-old country prodigy playing Sea of Glass show

EmiSunshine Hamilton announces herself with a bubbly howdy during a phone call in April.

You tell her she sounds pretty darned peppy for so early in the morning — it’s around 9 a.m. — and she laughs. You can almost see the smile that is surely painted on her face as she’s talking and walking in circles in her Madisonville, Tennessee, home.

Most 11-year-old girls would be glued to their smart phones, cyber stalking their latest pop crush or listening to the latest R5 hit.

EmiSunshine doesn’t like pop music. Never has. Likely never will.

She was raised on old-timey country, the kind you hear on the AM station in the small rural towns like her hometown, population about 5,000.

“It’s what I grew up with. My grandmother, my great-grandmother, my dad, my mom … I just kind of grew up with it and love the music,” said EmiSunshine, who sings a mix of gospel, blues and old-time country with a burnished bluesy twang. She brings her family band to Sea Of Glass on Monday, May 2, for a 7 p.m. show.

EmiSunshine, who turns 12 in June, is an old pro with a veritable lifetime of performing under her belt. She started singing at 4, playing ukulele at 7 and made her Grand Ole Opry debut at 9.

“I wasn’t really nervous about the Opry, but Ryman Auditorium, the church of country music, that was scary,” she said in her thick Tennessee accent, recalling that the debut was with Marty Stuart on his popular Opry showcase “Late Night Jams.” “Getting to meet him and doing the Opry at the same time really, really made me very nervous.”

She and her mother write all of her songs, including her crowd pleaser “Johnny, June and Jesus,” which was cowritten by her Aunt Crystal. She and her mom have been writing partners since EmiSunshine was 4 or 5, she said.

“I wasn’t really writing serious songs until I turned 5,” she said. “I wrote my first gospel song called ‘My Time to Fly.’ Then ‘Little Weeping Willow Tree’ came and then ‘Little Black Bird’ and then all the other ones after that.”

EmiSunshine said you can expect to hear many of her songs on Monday when she and her band — her brother plays mandolin, dad’s on bass, uncle pounds on the drums while a cousin plays guitar — take the Sea of Glass stage. She’ll also talk about her experiences on the road and behind the scenes, including her love of hula hooping.

“I love to draw. I play with my friends. I love to hula hoop,” said the homeschooled sixth-grader.

And despite what some of her detractors on social media say that her career is robbing her of her childhood, EmiSunshine said she does all the normal things other kids her age do.

“People say I don’t get enough time to be a kid and that I shouldn’t be doing this,” she said. “But they don’t really realize that I get to do all kinds of fun stuff. What I am doing right now is fun for me. I get to do all that stuff. I have a wonderful time.”

You won’t find EmiSunshine at the next Taylor Swift concert or standing in line to buy the new Selena Gomez CD, but if she has her way, you’ll hear her on the radio and see her at the Opry for years to come.

“I see myself traveling around on my bus, going to every place I wanted to go to and getting to play all the places I want to,” she said. “I think Chris Stapleton ) (Grammy, Academy of Country Musiuc and Coutny Music Association-winning newcomer) turned everything around. He’s made it possible for older (style) country singers. It gives them hope that they can win Grammys, win country music awards. Gives them hope that they can be on country radio. I think that’s really cool that Chris Stapleton won those awards. It gives singers hope.”