Adam Wright writes songs about people, as he states in the gut wrenching song conversation “The Banker” from his 2018 solo album Dust. A true singer songwriter, Wright colors in the shapes of characters so numerous and diverse you’d need a series of novels to tell their full stories. A bookworm with a taste for classic fiction, Wright admits, “I probably should’ve just written short stories instead of playing music. It would’ve been easier on my fingers” 

From superb heartbreak ballads like “So You Don’t Have To Love Me Anymore”  (recorded by Alan Jackson and earning a Grammy nomination for Best Country Song) to hard driving laments like “All The Trouble” (recorded by Lee Ann  Womack with a Grammy nomination for Best American Roots Song and an Americana Music Association nomination for Song Of the Year), Wright is a songwriter’s songwriter. His songs have been recorded by Nashville giants like Jackson, Womack, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, as well as lyrical luminaries like Brandy Clark, Robert Earl Keen and Bruce Robison. He’s also had dozens of songs recorded by award winning bluegrass bands like Lonesome River Band and Balsam Range, earning IBMA Song of the Year nominations with each. Wright’s own albums, though, follow a distinct creative thread not always found in the collaborations with others.  

Of the five releases thus far, four of them were written by Wright alone. While such a feat is not uncommon in the world of singer-songwriters, it is a practice all but extinct within Music Row. From the swaggeringly lighthearted I Win, which AP writer Steve Wine called “the antidote to 2020,” to the darkly disturbing yet sublime Dust, Wright’s writing has the consistent voice of an artist uniquely suited and tirelessly devoted to the craft of song. Following I Win was the Friends of Adam project: a collection of some of Nashville’s  most impressive singers, writers and musicians all performing live versions of some of their favorite Wright songs.  

His upcoming release, Nature of Necessity, an eighteen song behemoth and  masterclass of lyricism and storytelling, is the culmination of his years spent practicing his craft. Produced by Frank Liddell (Chris Knight, Miranda Lambert,  Lee Ann Womack, Parker McCollum), and recorded live by engineer Mike  McCarthy (Spoon, Patty Griffin) at East Iris in Nashville with Glenn Worf on ba (Mark Knopfler) and Matt Chamberlain on drums (Fiona Apple), the three piece tracked all songs live with the intention of capturing each performance raw, whole and unedited. “Once you get used to the idea that this is what you sound like playing and singing this song, you can let go of the idea that it isn’t perfect.  Or that it needs to be fixed. It’s a recalibration, an exercise in acceptance,” says Wright. 

Additional instruments by Park Chisolm and Adam Wright were later added to  the original live recordings, as well as background vocals by Shannon Wright, Anna Liddell, LeeAnn Womack and Patty Griffin.  On the strength of the writing alone, Nature of Necessity would have been a stunningly compelling, albeit bare bones,  acoustic singer-songwriter record. What altered that course was mixing engineer Anna Liddell’s vision to whip the existing matter of factness into a technicolor, psych-folk dreamscape. Ghostly swirling othervoices and sonic anachronisms lurking in the mix (and alien spaceship takeovers of a bucolic waltz) become normal after you settle into the unpredictable, stereo world she created.  

In “Leonardo,” Wright sings about how DaVinci’s obsessive study of the physics of whirlpools led to his epiphanies of the workings of the human heart.  Obsessive study leads to discovery. And for some, discovery is necessary to  their nature - as the “eddies and twirls” are to the tide pools and heart chambers  - and is reason alone for exploration. When asked to provide a “story” for how  the songs for the album came about, Adam says, “There is no story. I didn’t get sober. There was no breakup. I didn’t awaken to some new awareness. I’m just a lyric junkie with a melody addiction. And this is rock bottom.” It would seem that Nature of Necessity is just that.