For Whitney Duncan, it's always been about the right relationships. They helped shape her as a young girl nurturing her passion for music in a small Tennessee town. They were there to support her efforts to break into the upper reaches of the music business as a teenager. And, not long ago, when her path seemed uncertain, she knew she would find them again.
"There were times when I wondered, 'Is this going to work?’” she says, "and times when I was frustrated, but I realized a lot of people go through this. 'I'm young,' I thought. 'I still have time. I don't need to freak out and get impatient. Eventually the time will be right.'"
Her patience paid off, and the breakthrough came, she was introduced to Mark Bright through her booking agent.
Her first meeting with Bright, whose production credits include Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts and Sara Evans, would be a major career turning point, although at the time it felt more like a therapy session.
"I met with Mark and he was the coolest guy," she says, "so I just spilled everything. I told him about the struggles I'd been through and what I hoped to accomplish.' We totally connected and he got it. He said, 'I'm on board. Let's do it.'"
The two kindred spirits had recorded three sides when the final piece of the relationship puzzle fell into place in the form of John Shanks, known for his work with Sheryl Crow, Keith Urban and Kelly Clarkson. Shanks was working at the time with Bon Jovi, and had stopped to visit Bright at his offices. Bright, says Whitney, "went on like a proud parent" to Shanks, who asked if he could write with her then and there.
"What are the chances?" she says with a laugh.
The three-way combination--with Shanks and Bright co-producing--resulted in Right Road Now, a debut album that introduces Whitney as an intriguing new voice in contemporary country music, a woman who matches her vocal prowess with songwriting of real depth and breadth. She wrote every song on the CD, in conjunction with Both Bright and Shanks, as well as top-drawer Nashville tunesmiths like Hillary Lindsay, Brett James, Chris Tompkins and Gordie Sampson. It finds Whitney celebrating love, both new, in the steamy "Kinda Crazy," and well established, in the joyfully sensual "Fireflies"; chronicling love's failure in the self-assured "When I Said I Would" and the moody "Burn It Down"; and doing justice both to pure sass, in "The Bed That You Made," and to the raw pathos of "God Close Your Eyes." With the title song, Whitney and co-writers Shanks and James perfectly encapsulate the roses-from-thorns dynamic that infuses both the relationship in the song and the musical rebirth Whitney has experienced.
It wasn't long after she joined forces with Bright and Shanks that she gained interest from Warner Bros., and an acoustic showcase helped seal the deal.
The result, Right Road Now, sums up the journey.
"I've been down a few wrong roads musically," she says, "but it all feels right now--the right writers, the right songs, the right producers, the right team--the right road. It's really the perfect title for this record."
