Interview with Michelle Wright

In The Country with Dave Woods

Growing up in Merlin, Ontario, a small Canadian farming community near Chatham, Michelle Wright heard the rhythm & blues and Motown hits coming out of Detroit, just forty-five minutes away. But especially, she heard the strains of country music since her parents were both country performers. "My earliest memories of music are singing in the car or spending the weekend with my father after my parents separated and watching him put on a rhinestone-studded suit to perform in." As a young girl, she tagged along to countless shows. "We were never a family band, but I got a lot of inspiration and encouragement from my mother. That's where my love of country music really began." In 1992, Arista released Now & Then whichproduced a total of six singles included, including "One Time Around," "Guitar Talk," "He Would Be Sixteen," and the song that changed everything,"Take It Like A Man." . One of the tracks on Michelle's new project - the lead single - is "Small Town," Michelle says: "It's a song that I co-wrote with Rick Ferrell and up-and-coming Canadian singer/songwriter Danielle Bourjeaurd. It was our first time writing together, and as we were tossing around ideas, Danielle began to ask me questions about my career. It was fun to reminisce, and at one point, she said, "That's what we need to write. We need to write your story." At first, I wasn't so sure if I wanted to write about myself, but once it started to present itself on the page, the song unfolded organically. In 3 minutes and 38 seconds," Small Town" says so much about the road that I've been on all these years. It makes me smile when I listen to it."