What started with listening to her dad play music like the Dixie Chicks and Lee Kernaghan as a child has ended with Bega musician Felicity Dowd winning an award at the Tamworth Country Music festival.
The Bega local told East Coast Radio she was thrilled to have received the Tamworth Songwriters Association’s New Songwriter of the Year Award this week.
“I am honestly over the moon just to be recognised even as a finalist is such an incredible thing and then to find out that you’ve actually won a category is just so amazing and I just feel so privileged that I could be noticed among such great songwriters,” Dowd said with a smile.
Dowd has been in Tamworth since the 28th of December, taking part in the Senior Academy of Country Music in early January.
“It’s been a long few weeks almost now but it’s been such great experience to be surrounded by so many fellow artists and be able to watch so many different forms of music in such a close proximitym,” Dowd said.
“Honestly it means so many different things, getting that recognition just gives me the opportunity to get my name out there within the local industry in Australia,” she explained.
“It also gives me the opportunity to therefore record further tracks and be able to release more songs and singles and share my music on a larger scale which is really special.”
The teenager, who plays regular gigs along the South Coast, won the award for her song Handle It.
“I released the song back in March ’22 and basically it was about those secrets we have, that we don’t tell other people,” Dowd said.
“I entered it into the award just on a whim, I was like I’ll put it in and just see how it goes, and I was just so excited to get that feedback back from the Tamworth Songwriters Association and I feel very lucky.”
The Tamworth Songwriters Association’s New Songwriter of the year award is not Dowd’s first award at the Tamworth Country Music Festival with the impressive young musician winning an award in the youth category and the open novice section as a 16-year-old.
She said she’s hoping it’s not her last win at the festival either.
“Onto bigger and better things, I’m really hoping to expand and play more gigs,” Dowd said.
“Every festival I come up here (to Tamworth), I get more and more opportunities and I’m hoping to increase those,” she continued.
“Maybe one day in the future (I’ll win) a Golden Guitar or something like that but we’ll see how it goes, at the moment I’m just having fun with it and that’s the main thing.”
The 2023 Golden Guitar Awards are set to be held tomorrow night (Saturday January 21).
Images: Felicity Dowd
