GRAMMY-nominated Nashville songwriter Adam Wright has announced Nature of Necessity, an epic four-part solo project that brings his “richly crafted melodies” (Billboard) and intricate storytelling to the forefront, marking the culmination of years spent sharpening his craft. Out today is Side One, which features album opener “Yellow Bird,” a haunting ode to a poet lost in verse and bourbon, with delicate vocal accents from Shannon Wright and Anna Lise Liddell. “Yellow Bird is a composite sketch of characters I’ve come across over the years,” says Wright. “He’s slipped too far down into his own bourbon-soaked, poetic mind and tries to reach out, but doesn’t quite connect. It’s one of my favorite cuts from the album. Shannon and Anna’s harmonies are just beautiful. It’s also a damned good whiskey.”
Side One also includes recent single “Crawlspace” - which conjures the careening energy of 60s-era The Who if they recorded in Nashville - and two additional tracks, “Eternally East,” a reflection of the small and cosmic in binomial nomenclature, and “Music of Life,” a love song for the contentious. Wright explains that Side One is “a bar room character sketch, a self-inflicted song wound, a latin-esque journal entry and a love song of sorts.”
Nature of Necessity finds Wright stepping out of the writer’s room and into the spotlight. A masterclass in songwriting, the epic 18-track collection is produced by Frank Liddell (Miranda Lambert, Lee Ann Womack) and recorded at East Iris in Nashville, TN with renowned musicians Glenn Worf on bass (Mark Knopfler) and Matt Chamberlain on drums (Fiona Apple) with tracking engineer Mike McCarthy (Spoon, Patty Griffin). While originally intended to be solely a live trio album (the initial recording of Adam, Glenn and Matt remains wholly live and unedited), background vocals (Shannon Wright, Anna Liddell, Lee Ann Womack, Patty Griffin) and instruments (Park Chisolm, Adam Wright) were added to the raw performances and then mixed into a swirl of technicolor psychedelia by engineer Anna Liddell.
The record explores the lives of alcoholic poets, arrogant cowboys, estranged fathers, trick shot gamblers and one Leonardo da Vinci, while chronicling deception at sea, murder in the goldmines, the curse of creativity, and much more. When it comes to the story behind the upcoming album, Wright says: “The story is 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.”
Listen to Side One of Nature of Necessity HERE
Listen to single “Yellow Bird” HERE
Adam Wright is a “wildly brilliant genius” according to Robert Earl Keen and “one of the best of the best songwriters and storytellers there is” according to Buddy Miller. Lori McKenna added “every one of his songs reminds me how much I treasure the craft of songwriting.” Having penned songs for Garth Brooks, Brandy Clark, Sierra Hull, Alan Jakson, Randy Newman, Lee Ann Womack, Hailey Whitters and more, Wright is a lyrical force to be reckoned with. “Even if you don't know Adam Wright's name, you almost certainly know his songs,” says The Tennessean.
Side Two of Nature of Necessity comes on May 29. Pre-save here:
Nature of Necessity Tracklist:
Yellow Bird
Eternally East
Crawlspace
Music of Life
Whisper Gold
Motorblood
Mark of The Jester
Warm Wind
Dreamer and The Realist
All The Texas
Crack Down The Middle
Daughters of Memory
Leonardo
Heaven When I Die
Apprentice To The Draper
Friends Who Didn’t Live Long Enough
You Were Right and I Was Wrong
Weeds
About Adam Wright
Adam Wright’s songs are deeply rooted in the lives of people. A true singer-songwriter, Wright breathes life into his characters so vividly that you’d need a series of novels to fully tell their stories. A self-proclaimed bookworm with a fondness for classic literature, Wright quips, “I probably should’ve just written short stories instead of playing music. It would’ve been easier on my fingers.”
From heart-wrenching ballads like “So You Don’t Have to Love Me Anymore” (recorded by Alan Jackson, which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Country Song) to raw, defiant tracks like “All The Trouble” (recorded by Lee Ann Womack and nominated for both a Grammy and an Americana Music Association Song of the Year award), Wright has proven himself a master of the art of songwriting. His work has been recorded by Nashville heavyweights like Jackson, Womack, Garth Brooks, and Trisha Yearwood, alongside renowned artists such as Brandy Clark, Robert Earl Keen, and Bruce Robison. Wright has also contributed numerous songs to bluegrass bands like Lonesome River Band and Balsam Range, earning IBMA Song of the Year nominations for each.
Yet his solo albums carve out a distinct, deeply personal path that doesn’t always align with his collaborations. Across his solo releases to date, all but one song has been written solely by Wright. While this level of self-reliance isn’t uncommon in the singer-songwriter world, it’s rare in Nashville’s Music Row. From the playful optimism of "I Win" (which AP writer Steve Wine called "the antidote to 2020") to the haunting beauty of Dust, Wright’s songwriting voice remains consistent—a testament to his unwavering dedication to his craft.
