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 Shannon and Adam Wright feel describes their debut ACR (Alan's Country Records)/RCA album, Down This Road.
Love etched in verse, these twelve, self-penned compositions embrace, explore and even joke about their marriage, ultimately confirming that it, as their music, is one built upon equal partnership. Fueled by country songs without cliché, as set against a humid-sweet Georgia backdrop of honky tonk-meets-blues bar, the duo mine a deep creative heritage. (And do note Georgia. The decidedly country Wrights nuance so many who have hung their hats there: Ray to Hoagy, Chet to Gram to Alan...) As a result, The Wrights' songs are a slow-boil of musical ideals come together, honed from the get-go in rural hometowns, the clubs of downtown Atlanta, and eventually, the studio and stages of Nashville, Tennessee.
Chance brought the couple together in January, 1998 when Adam, then paying bills as a cook in Newnan, Georgia ("The Redneck Gourmet," his wife notes), 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." 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 I to focus on writing." In addition to songwriting, they recruited a band, started booking their own shows, oh, and they also fell in love.
Turning back the clock, it's easy to see why The Wrights would feel so certain, both as a duo and as partners. Adam's family is awash in musical tradition. From his father's piano playing-heard through the wall the baby grand shared with Adam's bedroom-to his mother's singing, and of course his uncle Alan Jackson's steep country influence, an apprenticeship in music was only natural. It seems even teenage punishments served to bolster his deft guitar work. "My parents would ground me from everything but playing my guitar. They'd send me to my room and I'd be on cloud nine 'cause I'd just crank up my amp and play all day!"
