by Runs Mar. 31-Apr. 4th.
Growing up in Merlin, Ontario, a small Canadian farming community near Chatham, Michelle heard the rhythm & blues and Motown hits coming out of Detroit, just forty‐five minutes away. “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 on countless jobs. “We never were 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.” After a year of college, studying counseling for the mentally disadvantaged, Michelle set off to tour North America. By 1988, she had released an album in Canada, Do Right By Me, on Savannah Records.
Signing with Arista/Nashville in 1990, Michelle released her first U.S. album, Michelle Wright, that same year. As she started work on her follow‐up CD for Arista, however, it became increasingly apparent that Michelle needed to spend much more time in Nashville to advance her career, so, in 1991, she relocated to Music City. She continues to reside in Tennessee today
The Academy of Country Music named Michelle its Top New Female Vocalist in May, 1993. Michelle catapulted to superstardom in Canada the same year, receiving a total of twelve music industry awards, including the Canadian Country Music Association’s Fans’ Choice Entertainer Of The Year award and double platinum honours for Now & Then.
Michelle has also begun to establish herself as a radio personality, launching her first syndicated radio show, The Women of Country with Michelle Wright, in 2005, and as an author, releasing her first book, A Year In The Life: The Journals of Michelle Wright, later the same year.
These days Michelle is happily enjoying her Hall of Fame stature as one of Canada’s great vocalists. But characteristically Michelle is not content to rest on her Hall of Fame laurels: 2012 saw her hard at work writing and recording a new album, which was released on July 9, 2013. Entitled Strong, the new album features eleven new songs, ten of which are her own co‐writes.
From her professional beginnings as a teenager to the present day, Michelle has steadily grown into an entertainer of the highest rank and has collected a trophy room full of awards to prove it. Her career is such that opportunity continually blesses her.
Michelle’s renewed career vigour has not gone unnoticed by her peers, who in 2012 nominated her for consideration as the Canadian Country Music Association’s Female Artist of the Year. She travelled to Saskatchewan to participate in the 2012 CCMA Awards celebration which aired live from Saskatoon on CBC on Sunday, September 9. Joining Michelle for a welcome trip to the CCMAs was her proud hubby of ten years, Marco Convertino. Since marrying Marco in April, 2002 (the first marriage for both), Michelle’s personal life is as satisfying as her professional career, and the future continues to look unquestionably “Wright.”
Runs Mar. 31-Apr. 4th.
