Pearl River County native turned blues singer and writer Angela Easley has won the 2022 International Singer-Songwriters Association Entertainer of the Year Award.

The songwriter who had her album “Rise” ranked number one on the 2022 on Billboard Blues Chart, and Easely was nominated for 10 award categories by the International Singer-Songwriters Association Awards (ISSA) as a songwriter and artist.

Fan submitted votes collected over a month put Easley in the final nominations for six categories. The ISSA judges controlled the final voting process and chose Easley as Entertainer of the Year.

“It was quite the honor,” said Easley.

She was awarded this achievement on Aug. 6, 2022 at the Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center in Atlanta Georgia. She received a “nice big solid crystal award that’s pretty heavy,” from ISSA.

“This was the nicest, and biggest award ceremony that I’ve been to yet in my career,” said Easley.

Easley said this was a big accomplishment for her.

During her live acceptance speech Easley thanked all her supporters, including God, ISSA CEOs, her family, friends and her fans who voted for her. She also described the meaning of her album Rise and hit single song Rise during her speech.

“Rise is a song about unity, bringing us all together and it doesn’t matter what religion we are, what race we are, or who we love. The only way we rise is by rising together and that was part of my speech as well. For us to come together and stop all the hate,” she said.

Easley said the next things for her include her single, Rise being featured on Music Row Radio. Her music video for, Don’t let the Devil Down will air on CMT and Easley plans to go on tour soon.

Easley album Rise can be heard on all streaming platforms and her Entertainer of the Year award speech can be seen on the ISSA Songwriters YouTube channel.