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  The Wrights - You're The Kind of Trouble
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Go ahead and throw the term ‘the better half’ out the window. Specifically, toss it out the window of the “Lincoln Town Car on a country road” that Adam and Shannon Wright feel describes their sound.

Chance brought the couple together in January, 1998 when Adam, then paying bills as a cook in Newnan, Georgia, filled in as a lead guitarist for Shannon, a club performer in Atlanta. “My cousin gave him my number and he came up,” Shannon says. “There was an immediate connection musically. We played for four hours that night...like we’d been playing together for a long time.” Playing together, the two were regulars on the Atlanta club scene. Indeed, each recognized the complement, and a partnership—albeit strictly as friends—was born.

Immediately they began building upon their mutual love of “town and country,” Hank to Aretha to Dylan to..., by writing songs, exploring their natural harmony, and looking to take their dreams to the next level.

Not everyone was as excited about the duo’s new found commitments; the moment they stopped playing the audiences favorite cover tunes was also the moment they hit their first wall. “At one point we got fired from every standing gig we had,” Adam recalls. “And we’d actually been making a living at it!” Shannon quips about being let go on an answering machine, even showing up for one weekly gig to find another band already on stage. Yet together they gladly accepted this fate. Adam adds with a laugh, “Many nights at those clubs and bars we’d be playing old country and blues songs and someone in the audience would request a current radio hit, so we’d say something like, ‘we don’t know that one, but how ‘bout this cool, old Willie Nelson song?’”


Confident that they were on to something unique, each went back to waiting tables and electrical work, day jobs into writer’s nights. “Actually, losing those cover gigs was probably the best thing for us,” Shannon says. “That freedom allowed Adam and me to focus on writing.” In addition to songwriting, they recruited a band, started booking their own shows, oh, and they also fell in love.

The geographic relocation of these Georgians was pretty much decided for them due to those unforeseen fortunate circumstances. Having labored to fuse a distinct, mutual style and encouraged by the reception their own songs were earning, Adam and Shannon got married and moved to Nashville in September of 2002. The couple wanted to surround themselves, to push themselves to create and perform in a town where profuse musical talent is displayed on every block, any night. As Adam notes, “From the first songwriters’ night we went to in town we were just floored. We thought, ‘We really need to step it up.’”

In typical Nashville style each took other jobs (Adam worked construction, Shannon waited tables) in order to play the small stages at night. “Our main focus was on our music,” Adam says. “We were writing and playing as much as possible.”

The Wrights’ focus landed them on the Grand Ole Opry stage and as an opener for country music icon, Loretta Lynn. Accordingly, dedicated fans began to congregate at their shows, as did the industry. Keith Stegall was impressed with the band’s growth. As the music hit full-bloom, their hard work enveloping every note and beat, he and co-producer John Kelton signed on to move The Wrights into the studio.


Resulting were twelve critically acclaimed, self-penned titles for their debut album Down This Road—released in May of 2005 on ACR/RCA Records. “It was a blessing to have the fabled RCA Label Group behind our first album effort, but, at the same time a little overwhelming for ‘newbies’ to the industry” says Shannon. The album release was preceded with multiple radio station visits and months of touring afterwards with ACR label head Alan Jackson and many others. Adam reflects, “It was our first time out on a bus tour. We just followed Alan from city to city. It was kind of like joining the circus. We loved it!”

When the RCA experience came to an end Adam and Shannon expanded their musical journey with the addition of a home studio. That project, on top of touring throughout the Southeast, has kept the two busy. The Wrights are currently writing and recording new material for an upcoming album.

In addition to a major record deal, national airplay and critical acclaim, The Wrights have also had several of their songs recorded by other artists. "If Love Was A River" and "Strong Enough" appeared on Alan Jackson’s 2004 release What I Do. Most recently, rock n’ soul legend Solomon Burke recorded a song by The Wrights and hit songwriter Paul Kennerly called "You’re the Kind of Trouble" for his 2006 release Nashville produced by Buddy Miller.

Listening to the couple and their tuneful symbiosis, one can’t help but acknowledge the patient craft, talent, and strength attained when two halves flow so seamlessly together.



PRESS
****Four out of four stars... “The Wrights have pulled of a lovely, solid debit that no doubt will land them on a number of year-end best of country lists.”
Chrissie Dickinson, Chicago Tribune

“Together they share a wry duet of marital discord that makes bickering sexy.”
Chris Willman, Entertainment Weekly

“A damn fine country album...The Wrights have delivered a smooth, totally entertaining package of intelligent, well-constructed material that put a big dose of Georgia soul into Music City’s glitter”
James Kelly, Creative Loafing, Atlanta

“Turns out The Wrights are the real deal.”
David Cantrell, No Depression

“As mainstream country continues wildly groping for an identity, perhaps everyone should consider The Wrights, an unassuming husband and wife Georgia duo who provide a pleasant alternative to country music popular archetypes...”
Nick Marino, Atlanta Journal and Constitution


“...singing inseparable harmonies over steel-reinforced shuffles...they quietly go about the business of working out a relationship, one song at a time.”
Brian Mansfield, USA Today

Best of 2005 list ...“ A delicate, understated, apparently under-the-radar debut, Down This Road will do down as one of Nashville’s most unfortunately kept secrets of 2005.”
Nicole Keiper and Peter Cooper, The Tennessean