MICHELLE WRIGHT:
EVERYTHING OLD IS
STILL BRAND NEW
Why her first record still resonates
with her fans, and how it launched a career —
Do Right By Me did right for Michelle
Here's an entertainment business secret: Artists always dismiss their first recordings. They were too young, too immature. The songs weren't good enough. The vocals could have been sung better….
Not Michelle Wright. Her first record was released 22 years ago, and she still loves it. It gave her the first hits she ever had — no less than seven in Canada — and it led to her first U.S. record contract, still more hits, and a career that continues to bring her in front of big audiences.
When Do Right By Me was released in 1988 it was the perfect combination of two songwriters, a savvy manager, and a unique voice who gave the songs life.
Michelle is delighted that it's been released again. Remixed and remastered, Do Right By Me sounds even more crisp and fresh than it did the first time around. And she has added a bonus track — a gentle duet with the late Terry Carisse from 1987, the title cut of his album None of the Feeling is Gone.
"I look back at this record with such affection," she says today. "No regrets, just happiness that it all came together so well and sounds so right today." It's a reminder, of course, of a different time, and a singer who was, then, a very different woman.
"I'd started out with Marilynne Caswell, who was the main country music talent booker at the time; we worked hard, drove long distances between gigs, and we partied hard as well. I was making a living, feeding myself, paying the rent," she recalls. "Mostly we played cover songs, but I had made a cassette tape of myself singing a Judds song, "Mama He's Crazy," so when Marilynne told me that Brian Ferriman, who had a label in Toronto, was looking for a female artist, I sent him the tape."
Impressed, Ferriman heard her sing at a small club in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1985, fell in love with her deep alto voice, and the pair signed a recording and management deal that's lasted for more than 25 years.
There were other people who played a major part in making Do Right By Me the significant record it turned out to be. Nashville songwriter Rick Giles showed up at a gig near Ottawa, where he was planning to meet another writer, Gilles Godard. Impressed by Michelle's voice; Rick Giles talked her up to his friend and co-writer, Steve Bogard, and the die was cast.
"I was ready to pursue this crazy idea," Michelle says now. "Those songwriters seemed to be up-and-coming guys who were doing alright, so we took the plunge, and went to Nashville to get this record done." She stayed at Rick Giles' house "so he could become familiar with my voice, my range and my personality, I suppose. I don't think the songs he and Steve wrote were necessarily written for me, but they certainly reflected my life."
Like most women, she remembers the break-ups, the tears, and the hopes for new romance. "I was still drinking a lot," she recalls ruefully. "I was lonely sometimes, and I'd been through some dysfunctional relationships. And a lot of my friends were going through the same things — searching for themselves and for relationships that worked, and often being hurt."
Steve Bogard and Rick Giles wrote seven of the 11 songs on Do Right By Me — and went on to produce the album — and the songs were both a revelation and a relief. They were a way of dealing with life's hurdles and a way to give the message to thousands of others who could, and did, identify with what they heard.
Best of all, when the songs were released, there were chart hits — three of them in the Top 10, including the title track. Michelle's first single, "I Want to Count on You," came out in Canada in 1986 and made a dent in the country charts. "I Wish I Were Only Lonely" was a crossover adult contemporary song, and her distinctive cover of Andy Kim's "Rock Me Gently," even earned her some play on rock radio.
To this day, she's not met the songwriter, best known for writing the Archies' hit, "Sugar Sugar." "I saw him in the gym one day, and I went over to thank him. He was very polite, and I later discovered I'd been talking to Gino Vannelli," she says.
And there's one of Michelle's own songs on the CD — she finds song writing one of the most difficult and challenging things she ever undertakes. But a few lines from "Reaching For the Stars" are touching in their innocence, hope, longing and ambition:
I'm young and I'm free
And I know that there's one thing that's part of me
As long as I'm singin' and playin' my guitar
I'll keep reaching for the stars.
More than 20 years later, Michelle gets requests for many of the songs on her first recording. "It surprises me sometimes," she tells people. "The fans on Facebook ask me about these songs all the time, and when I sing them people even know the words. I hope the people who have been following me for a long time will enjoy having the record available again, and the new fans will be able to discover where I started…"
Do Right By Me was a major hit in Canada, selling well over 40,000 copies, and it opened many doors in the United States. The American country music world was impressed, and Arista Nashville made her one of its flagship artists. Michelle moved permanently to Nashville to consolidate the career the record had kick-started. More hits were to follow — "New Kind of Love," "Take It Like a Man," " He Would Be Sixteen," "Your Love" and more. The Canadian star was on her way.
But the roots of Michelle Wright's success are out in the open again with the re-release of Do Right By Me. The strength of those roots — and the singer's own strength — is self-evident in every song.
Not everything that's old becomes new again, but this classic country record sounds as fresh, lively, and exciting as it did when it was made.
