Michelle Wright is going STRONG
By Bill Samaras
 
There is no doubt that Michelle Wright is already a musical legend as the youngest female singer in the Canadian Country Hall of Fame.  She has done so much over her 25  years in the music business that her boundaries keep growing and her music keeps shining brightly as her growth and creativity continue to evolve. 
In addition to making music Wright has launched her first syndicated radio show, The Women of Country with Michelle Wright and authored a book, A Year in The Life: The Journals of Michelle Wright.
2011 was a milestone year for Wright as she achieved an induction into the Canadian Country Hall of Fame in a year that also included a tour of Canada and in November being presented the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in recognition of her contributions to Canadian culture and civic life.

In July she released a new studio album titled “Strong”, independently on her record label, Savannah Music.  The new CD was co-produced by Jason Barry, Eric Silver and Danick Duppelle, which displays her incredible song writing talent as 10 of the 11 songs are her own and marks the first release in seven years.

“It was just time for me to get a new record out and I was ready to look at my songs and write some new material but really I just focused on life and experiences that I have had over the last few years and wrote about it and that is kind of how it goes, hey?  Just writing about life, love, the ups and the downs and the ways and that is really what the inspiration has been and it is just song writing,” Wright said.
“What ended up happening is the record ended up as an inspirational record I would say or a reflective record with songs like “Öne of These Days”, “Another Good Day” and “Stronger” –these songs which tended to be positive thinking in general and then the song Strong started to be written and I feel very strong. I feel strong in a lot of ways right now in my whole point of view and I am just surrounded by these strong women.  The truth of the matter is that my business manager has Lou Gehrig’s disease.  I see the strength and courage that Sue displays and it almost doesn’t allow any room for me to be weak, lol, but, whatever you can deal with this and I think that I have just had these experiences in the past few years that have lead me to know that I have had to be strong and can be strong when necessary people step up to the plate and you find that there is courage and strength that you might not think that you have so that word Strong and the song just felt like it should be the title of this album.”

Michelle also found inspiration when she went to play for the troops in Afghanistan.  “I went to Afghanistan to perform for the troops and while I was there a Captain by the name of Nichola Goddard  (the first female Canadian combat soldier to lead Canadian soldiers into combat and the first artillery officer to call in support fire on an enemy since the Korean War, she was tragically the first female combat soldier lost to enemy fire - all in the same battle). She gave her life.  You know, she was killed in combat.  This person was just so strong and somehow I knew that this was going to come out in a song which is reflected in this song and there is a picture of her in my new video along with my business manager Sue Ferriman, who is the first person that you see sitting in her wheel chair, and with World Vision, I have been on trips with World Vision and I have met a lot of women who are facing unimaginable circumstances.  Not only did they show me a lot of strength but they also they just wept and I sat back there with them and you know, they just dry their eyes and they do what they had to do.  You know these experiences stay with your life forever.  My mother was a single teenage mom and lost both of her sisters and today she lost her husband and has just showed so much strength and courage in spite of this loss.  You don’t have to look very far to find inspiration for your songs.”