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Richell Rene "Chely" Wright (born October 25, 1970) is an American country music artist and, starting in 2010, gay rights activist. On the strength of her debut album in 1994, the Academy of Country Music (ACM) named her Top New Female Vocalist in 1995. Wright's first Top 40 country hit came in 1997 with "Shut Up and Drive". Two years later, her fourth album yielded her first number one single, the title track, "Single White Female". Overall, Wright has released seven studio albums on various labels, and has charted more than fifteen singles on the country charts. As of May 2010, Wright's previous eight albums had sold over 1,000,000 copies in the United States. In May 2010, Wright became the first major country music performer to publicly come out as gay. In television appearances and an autobiography, she cited among her reasons for publicizing her homosexuality a concern with bullying and hate crimes toward gays, particularly gay teenagers, and the damage to her life caused by "lying and hiding".
As a songwriter she has written songs that have been recorded by Brad Paisley, Richard Marx, Indigo Girls, Mindy Smith and Clay Walker, among them Walker's top ten hit, "I Can't Sleep" that won her a BMI award. On May 4, 2010, Wright released both her memoir of being a closeted lesbian, Like Me, and her first album of new songs since 2005, Lifted Off the Ground.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Wright grew up in a musical family in Wellsville, Kansas, a very small town with a population under 2,000. As presented in her autobiography, Like Me, two major factors driving her approach to life were her calling to be a country music performer, which she resolved upon as early as age four, and her realization, as early as age eight, that she was gay. (In Like Me, Wright variously terms herself a "homosexual", a "lesbian", and a "gay woman".)
As a toddler, Wright would sit in a great-grandmother's lap and rest her own hands on the great-grandmother's hands as the woman played piano. Also in these years, she began to seek out adult audiences to sing for. Piano lessons followed. Starting at age 11, she was a professional pianist and singer, and from seventh to twelfth grades, the local branch of the American Legion appointed her the bugler to play taps at the funerals of veterans.
At the beginning of third grade, Wright realized she was in love with her schoolteacher. Although at that young age she lacked sexual awareness, this crush made her realize that she had an attraction to women that she knew to be culturally taboo. Not only did she share the belief that her sexual orientation was immoral, she also believed that it would kill her career hopes for her audiences to know about it. From early childhood, she therefore built up resolve to never confide the secret of her nature to anyone, let alone pursue romantic love with women.
The summer before her senior year of high school, she worked as a performing musician at the Ozark Jubilee, a long running country music show in Branson, Missouri. In 1989, taking the advice of her grandfather, she auditioned and landed a position in a musical production at Opryland USA, a now defunct theme park in Nashville, Tennessee, starting the job straight out of high school. She would call Nashville home until 2008. For the next several years, she interned and attended writers' nights, while honing her singing and songwriting. She attained her first recording contract in 1993, when Harold Shedd signed her to Mercury/Polygram, and her first album was released in 1994 on the corporation's Polydor label.
After releasing two unsuccessful albums through Mercury/Polygram, Wright asked to be released from her contract and later signed with MCA Nashville. Here, she had her first top twenty country hit in 1997 with the song "Shut Up and Drive," off her third album, Let Me In, which was released by MCA Nashville. In 1999, her fourth album, Single White Female, brought her several hit songs and her first gold album certification. In 2000, during a period of months when she was touring with fellow country artist Brad Paisley, Wright and Paisley cowrote a duet entitled, "Hard to Be a Husband, Hard to Be a Wife", which they performed in their joint shows. Later that year—on her 30th birthday—the two of them performed the song at a televised celebration of Grand Ole Opry's 75th anniversary (televised by CBS). The recording of that song's performance at the Opry was later nominated for Vocal Event Of The Year as part of the 35th Annual CMA Awards. Additionally, Wright joined with Diamond Rio for a song on their One More Day album, as well as Paisley's Part II album, both of which were released in 2001.
Later in 2001, Wright released the first single from her fifth studio album, Never Love You Enough. The album was originally scheduled to be released on September 11, 2001 but due to the World Trade Center attack, the release date was postponed to September 25. Although Never Love You Enough debuted at #4 on the Billboard Country Albums chart, it did not match the success of Single White Female.
In these peak years of her popularity, Wright was promoted as a sex symbol by People magazine and FHM magazine. In 2001, People chose her for inclusion in its annual article, "50 Most Beautiful People". In 2002, she was ranked #93 among FHM's "100 Sexiest Women of 2002". and later that year was ranked #18 of "The 20 Hottest Women in Music 2002"
She also cowrote Clay Walker's 2003 top 10 single "I Can't Sleep".
In 2003, Wright parted ways with MCA Nashville after "Never Love You Enough" failed to meet sales expectations. In January 2004, she signed with a new independent label, Vivaton, and began preparation for a new album. Although a music video was released for a song entitled "The Back of the Bottom Drawer," the album never materialized. Wright announced she was splitting with Vivaton in June 2004. Again without a label, she nevertheless released a single in late 2004, mostly through the Internet and various radio stations. The song, entitled "Bumper of My S.U.V.," was written by Wright in response to an altercation with an irate woman who noticed the United States Marine Corps bumper sticker on the back of Wright's car.
The success of "Bumper of My SUV", released on Wright's own Painted Red Music Group, was followed by the release of an EP, Everything. The record contained "Back of the Bottom Drawer" and "Bumper of My SUV" along with four demos. The album was made exclusively available through Wright's website (where she states she put out the album for her fans) and was later made available in many retail outlets such as Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy. The success of the EP led Wright to be signed with Dualtone Records.
Wright's sixth album, The Metropolitan Hotel, was released in February 2005 on Dualtone Records. The CD included both "The Bumper of My S.U.V." and "Back of the Bottom Drawer," along with ten additional songs, most of which were written or cowritten by Wright. The album itself was produced in conjunction with her own company. Although not a "breakout" commercial hit, it debuted at #18 on Billboard's Top Country chart and it reached #7 on the Top Independent Albums chart). The fourth single released from The Metropolitan Hotel was "C'est La Vie (You Never Can Tell)", a retitled cover of Chuck Berry's song "You Never Can Tell".
Wright signed to Vanguard Records in 2008. She released her seventh studio album, Lifted Off the Ground, on May 4, 2010. The album is produced by Grammy Award winner Rodney Crowell. All tracks on the album were written by Wright except for "Heavenly Days", co-written with Crowell. The first single off the album is "Broken", which was released to radio in April 2010. In early 2011, Wright released a dance mix for the album's third single, "Damn Liar". The remix was produced by Jared Kuemper and was officially be released to dance radio on March 29, 2011.
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