Michelle bringing her Wright stuff
PREVIEW
Michelle Wright performs Friday at the Webber Academy Performing Arts Centre. Tickets: 403-2823353 or zoobis.com.
It’s a Hall of Fame, not a mausoleum.
Michelle Wright is adamant about the distinction. She wants it known that her recent induction into this nation’s Country Music Hall of Fame doesn’t mark the closing of a casket, signalling the end of an illustrious career.
On the contrary. It’s yet one more thing that’s rejuvenated the musician and inspired her in the early stages of a comeback.
“The Hall of Fame was so unexpected and it caused me to get thinking, ‘Well, I’m a bit young for this,’ but it was such an amazing thing to be asked,” says the 51-year-old of the 2011 honour. “And I thought, ‘Well, I wonder if I could put new music out and be one of the first artists in the history of Canadian country music that could be a Hall of Famer and have new music out that would be considered relevant.’
“So that presented a challenge to me — or another dream or goal to make that happen.
“But I can’t make it happen. It’s actually my peers and the people in the industry that have to help me … And they are helping me make it happen and it’s amazing to be a part of. It makes me feel,” she pauses searching for the word, “good.”
That seems like something of an understatement, considering the results so far. The small-town Ontario native is currently enjoying a rebirth, with her latest appropriately titled single Another Good Day finding favour on country radio and it was announced last month that she is nominated for Female Artist of the Year — an award that she’s won five times — at the upcoming Canadian Country Music Awards, taking place in Saskatoon Sept. 9.
She’s also been performing some dates across the land, including a show Friday at the Webber Academy Performing Arts Centre.
And to further her claim that she’s “not resting on my laurels,” she’s currently in the midst of working on a new album in Nashville with Emerson Drive member Danick Dupelle — who co-wrote the current single — and has recorded six songs already. Her first fulllength studio album in six years. is supposed to be out in September.
“We’re all professionals who been doing this for awhile. It’s kind of cool because there’s not as much second-guessing and we all know what we’re doing, and it’s been a really smooth and fun process making this record,” says Wright, who’s made Music City her home for the past two decades. “The song selection and everything — because I feel quite sure of what it is I want to sing about and how I want it to sound, and I’m surrounded by a bunch of people that are helping me make that happen.”
It’s not as if there should be any shortage of believers considering the career she’s already had. Rising from obscurity to become one of the most decorated women in North American country music during the ’90s, Wright has won Junos, more than a dozen CCMAs and the U.S.-based Academy of Country Music’s designation of Top New Female Vocalist in 1992.
Like much of the industry, though, especially in her homeland, the past decade saw things fall off dramatically, with things stalling with the poor reception that met her last album, Everything and More. But after regrouping with an acoustic album of her old hits and the reissue of her debut Do Right By Me, now the new single and oncoming album have shown her that she needn’t think in terms of the past when it comes to her musical career.
“I’d been around and did my thing and was well received and well rewarded for it. I came along at just a remarkable time. How lucky I was to be there when all of that was happening, it was just awesome,” she says. “Oddly enough there’s a part of me that feels like I don’t want to be selfish and say, ‘Give me more,’ but what I want to do, making music is a real, true need that I have. I have to do this. I want to do this. And there’s only one way I keep on doing it and that is if radio will play my music and the fans need to be aware that I exist and show up … Hopefully, it will allow me to extend the awesome career that I’ve had.”
“I feel like I have something to offer. I really do. I feel like I have something to offer still. And now my job is to persuade everybody else to maybe hear that, too.”