Michelle Wright: The Wright Stuff

Michelle Wright is a Canadian country artist with a substantial career in her homeland and significant accomplishments in other markets as well. Since her 1988 recording debut for Toronto-based Savannah Records, Michelle has sold more than 800,000 records in Canada alone, more than any other Canadian country artist in the modern era of country music (with the exception of Shania Twain). Michelle has released nine CDs in Canada, two of which have been certified by the CRIA for double-platinum sales, and another three certified at the gold sales level. She has won more than thirty major music industry awards in her home country, and she has had twenty-five Top Ten hits at Canadian country radio, seven of which went to number one. Michelle signed to Arista Records' newly-formed Nashville division in 1990. During her ten-year relationship with Arista Nashville, she sold more than 600,00 records in the United States, becoming the first Canadian-born artist in the modern era of country music to have a Top Ten hit in America (Take It Like A Man, 1992) and a Number One video on CMT-USA (Take It Like A Man, 1992), and to win a major U.S. music industry award (Academy of Country Music Top New Female Artist, 1993). Michelle is considered by her peers at home as a ground-breaking artist whose success in the United States made the American country music industry more aware of Canadian artists, thereby paving the way somewhat for other Canadian artists subsequently signed in Nashville - Prairie Oyster, Charlie Major, Terry Clark, Paul Brandt, Shania Twain, the Wilkinsons, and Carolyn Dawn Johnson, among others. Michelle's 25-year career has taken her to every continent except Antarctica. She has performed in the United Kingdom and Western Europe, and in Australia and Asia as well. Last year she headlined a tour of Canadian country artists to Afghanistan to perform for the Canadian and NATO troops stationed there. Michelle is an active humanitarian: a World Vision artist affiliate, she has been to Africa and Central America in recent years to witness the child-sponsorship organization's good work in those impoverished areas (Michelle and her husband, Marco, sponsor two children themselves through World Vision.) A resident of Nashville since 1991, Michelle remains very busy with her career: she's a published author, an award-winning songwriter, the host of her own syndicated radio show, a concert headliner, an impassioned humanitarian, and a proud and influential Canadian.