In the never ending and sometimes awkward dance of art and commerce, some creators are lighter on their feet than others. Take Adam Wright, who’s been writing songs for Music Row publishers for two decades. Hits for the bro radio? Not his lane. But lovingly literate songs beloved by masterful performers such as Lee Ann Womack, Alan Jackson, Brandy Clark and Bruce Robison? Yes, and that’s what it means I guess to be a “songwriter’s songwriter,” for good or for ill.
Through recordings by Womack and Jackson, Adam’s been nominated for two Grammy Awards. His songs were picked up regularly for the TV series Nashville. He’s been cut by Garth Brooks, Robert Earl Keen, soul icon Solomon Burke, and bluegrass luminaries like the Lonesome River Band and Balsam Range. Sticking to his own high standards and an authentic intelligence, Wright has kept the lights on, raised a family, and earned a spot among the city’s most respected composers. So how does the former Atlanta-based folk singer feel about it all?
“I wish it paid more sometimes, but you know, maybe that changes at some point,” he says with a wry smile in Episode #315 of The String. “But man, I'm very happy with the work of writing songs most of the time. I still sometimes am envious of artists that only write for themselves. The continuity of focus sounds delicious.”
I interject that he seems to devote some time to his own artistic output, because there’s an 18-song album being released this year with his name on it and songs that sure don’t sound like they’re written by groups of two to four professionals for the commercial market. “Most definitely,” he says. The album in question is Nature of Necessity, which is being released in four chapters or sides, containing four or five songs each, between now and Sept. 25.
The first batch arrived on March 6, telling us a lot about the reach and boldness and diversity that the whole package offers. “Crawlspace,” the first single, is a clever and churning country rocker that turns the subfloor of a home into a storehouse of fears, insecurities and mysteries of the soul. “Yellow Bird” is a melancholy portrait of an old poet fading away on a barstool and making those around him feel awkward and sad. I particularly love the slow burn groove and extravagant language of “Eternally East,” in which a simple pre-dawn meditation at home is spun into a natural philosopher’s notebook, complete with Latin nomenclature. It might be the least pitchable song to country radio ever, and it is exotically beautiful.
The whole album is this way - unpredictable, transporting, and fiercely smart. I’m lucky to have a copy that let me preview the delicacies to come. I don’t know of any Nashville writer who’d so boldly take on subjects as varied and research heavy as the 1890’s California gold rush, Leonardo DaVinci’s notebooks, and the inner life of an oil change tech nursing a broken dream. It also sounds fantastic, with Adam’s crafty and precise acoustic guitar complemented live on the floor by the world-class rhythm section of bass player Glenn Worf and drummer Matt Chamberlain. Longtime friend and collaborator Park Chisolm added some keys and guitars. Mixing engineer Anna Liddell brought the vision home with creative application of polish and ambience.
In short, I think Nature of Necessity is a masterpiece that will take its place in a small but precious lineage in Nashville that’s seen certain writers upend expectations and history and come up with something strikingly new and individual that could only have been made here. In the show, I compare the album to Mickey Newbury’s Frisco Mabel Joy, James Talley’s, Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, but We Sure Got a Lot of Love, and even, in its defiant sprawl, Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde.
Adam moved here from his hometown of Atlanta soon after meeting his wife Shannon on the songwriter and folk circuit down there. They’d formed a musical duo and earned the admiration of one pretty special constituent, Wright’s uncle Alan Jackson. The country star had been given his own imprint, and The Wrights were the first signing to ACR, or Alan’s Country Records. Their debut Down This Road in 2015 was wonderful but clearly not synched up with the sounds of hit country radio, so the parent company RCA Records let them go. Adam tells me early on in the interview about their disillusionment with touring and his move toward staying in town and writing full time.
The business can be hard on writers as specifically talented and free-minded as Wright, but he found a professional home around 2012 with Carnival Music, a company we’ve talked about before with Adam’s fellow writer/artists Aubrie Sellers and Stephanie Lambring. Run by Texas native and veteran producer Frank Liddell, it stands out for its maverick ways. “Frank Liddell is a believer in writers and artists and people that he sees trying to do something against the grain,” Wright says.
Adam tells the story that some years ago, he tried to break through at country radio by immersing himself in that music and trying like never before to write to the marketplace. He wrote with new people and demoed songs in a new way. It didn’t work, and he didn’t like it. And one day Liddell took him aside and said that he saw what Adam was doing, but he didn’t need to. Adam remembers Liddell’s message: “Forget all of this. Don't think about what this person wants. Don't think about what I want. Don't think about what your friends think you ought to do. Do what you want to do. Figure out what that is and do that.” He had to detox, in a manner of speaking, trying to rebuild his faith in himself and his methods and instincts. When he did, he says, “It was wonderful. It really changed who I was as a writer.”
I think you’ll love Adam in conversation. He’s thoughtful and calm, volunteering stories that amplify the opportunities and trade-offs of negotiating the Nashville song market as well as I’ve ever heard it told. And he’s a humble guy who says he’s trying to adjust to being a more assertive artist. “I love the creative part of all this. I love to make songs. I love to record songs. I'm trying to learn to love releasing songs,” Wright says. “It just seems like I just kind of take them out to the curb and be like, hey, here's a sofa. If anybody wants it it’s pretty good. And then I go back in and hopefully it's gone next time I come out. That's not really probably the most pragmatic way to do it, so we're doing it their way. And you know? I'm enjoying it.”
