Portageville's own rising star

Recently, Portageville's own local musician, Duhlayknee, decided to tell her friends, family and fans a "secret" at her music video premiere party. The event was held at Klipfel's Korner on Thursday, June 26.

Her new single "Secrets" is now available for download on all digital retailers (iTunes, Amazon, Google play, Spotify and CD Baby). The new song is the first single on her new album produced by Dennis Gurley of Alley Trax Recording in Hayti, MO.

Duhlayknee started singing when she was a little girl and soon started learning guitar and the result was one amazing and talented young lady. She is the daughter of Jason and Michelle Thacker and the granddaughter of Brenda Pind, Sandi Wallace, and Larry & Lavona Thacker of Portageville. Duhlayknee is considered a local celebrity.

She has performed various shows and venues throughout southeast Missouri for quite some time now. She not only sings, but writes and plays her own material.

Her first album, "Just Kids," was released in 2011 and it quickly became a music favorite of all ages. Duhlayknee has two other music videos from the album, "Feel This Way" and "When It Comes 2 Love." These videos had so many hits on YouTube, she was eager to do another one. So the "secret" began.

Her manager Dennis Gurley contacted local videographer Zach St. Cin from Wardell to direct the music video. St. Cin has worked with Duhlayknee and Gurley before when he directed Duhlayknee's video for "When It Comes 2 Love."

"I was thrilled when they called me. We had so much fun filming last time and we knew we wanted to take her music and video to the next level. There was no way I was not going to do it," said St. Cin.

When asked why she chose him again to direct, Duhlayknee replied , "He's fun, he gets things done quickly, has a great eye for video and editing plus he's extremely dedicated. Oh and fast with results too!"

After several meetings and lots of planning, the video was set to film. The video was entirely filmed in the local area, Conran and Hayti. It took 18 hours over the course of two days. They filmed pieces at the abandoned school in Conran and at the home of Nicky McKay in Hayti.

"It wasn't just Duhlayknee in the video, we all know there has to be a boy or co-star. S. J. McMillen, another Portageville local, was cast in the video. We can't tell you anything because that would be spoiling it but we can say the video is beautiful, even haunting," said St. Cin.

"Even though they were hard at work, it didn't seem like they were. They were usually seen laughing and joking."

The video is finally done, the song had been released a week prior to the video premiere and it was time to show it to all her fans, who are named Dalaniacs. Pete and Darlene Klipfel of Klipfel's Korner were more than happy to hold the premiere party in their town's local establishment. "Pete and I do the best we can to help these young people out. I just wished we could've done more but she brought the house down," said Darlene Klipfel.

Before the video was screened, Duhlayknee performed a 45 minute set that included her fan favorites, new material and classic covers such as Elvis' "Heartbreak Hotel" & Jack Johnson's "Banana Pancakes." Some performers have or need auto tune to sing their songs but not this girl. For 45 minutes, the party that had about 50 people watched her crush her vocals song after song. Everyone was singing and dancing along, and that just showed how much Duhlayknee truly loves her music.

It was time to show the world the "secret" that Duhlayknee, her mom, Michelle, Dennis, Zach and S.J. had been keeping under wraps. The video is three minutes long. "I am always nervous when I have to premiere a video, I was very excited though. They enjoyed it when I dared to look out into the crowd," said St. Cin. The crowd was so pleased, they commended Duhlayknee, Zach and S.J. with huge applause and asked for a second showing.

Her manager said, "It is a very beautiful video. Zach really out did himself and Duhlayknee looked beautiful just like the song."

"The video was awesome. If those three keep working the way they are now, they are going to make it. Those three are an awesome team," added Klipfel.