New Artist: Whitney Duncan
New Artist: Whitney Duncan
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, as it often does, from a serendipitous introduction.
"My booking agent introduced me to Mark Bright and said, 'He's a guy who will totally get what you're wanting to do,'" says Whitney. 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.'"
“Everything about her screams greatness and makes me want to share her with everyone,” says Bright, explaining his affinity for her. “She’s been able to attain a depth in her writing that is rare for an artist so young. This woman is just awesome.”
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.
"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."
Through it all, Whitney displays the maturity and self-assurance of a woman who has found her voice, something that has come after a lifelong journey. She was born in Scotts Hill, Tennessee, a town of about 900--"There was just one four-way stop," she says. Her father is a state environmentalist and her mother a schoolteacher. It was her grandfather, though, who helped introduce her to music.
"I was a grandaddy's girl," she says. "I remember being at their house when I was four or five, sitting in front of the TV watching Elvis videos with him. I knew when I first watched Elvis, 'That's what I want to do!”
She had the talent to go with the drive, and after gaining confidence by performing for her family she began singing in church. Soon, she was performing at fairs and festivals.
"I dragged my parents everywhere, every weekend almost," she says. "There was always a strawberry festival or a barbecue festival, and we would take trips to Kentucky, Missouri, and wherever else I could for a chance to perform."
Whitney sang at school events, including both her kindergarten and eighth-grade graduations, placed third in an all-age talent competition at Loretta Lynn's Ranch in Hurricane Mills, and got the chance to sing with a group of promising singers her vocal coach worked with, both at Euro Disney and at Paris's Notre Dame cathedral. Then, in her early teens, she began traveling to Nashville.
"I played at Tootsie's a few times when I was 13 or so," she says. "I remember I couldn't stay around because of my age, but I loved being on that stage."
Someone who heard her sing at a competition offered to put together a three-song demo for them for what she and her parents considered a great deal of money. Her vocal coach recommended a Nashville attorney, who said, "Don't do it. There are other ways to go about it." He became a mentor and Whitney began traveling back and forth to Nashville to write songs. She set aside sports--she was a talented softball player who had been pitching for her high school team in eighth grade--as she began concentrating more on music.
"My father, who had to be at work by 8:00, would get up really early to take me halfway to Nashville to meet my manager, who took me the rest of the way in," she says. That changed when she got her own driver's license, although, she says, "They still took me in when they could--I wasn't that great a driver!"
Whitney, who needed just two classes her senior year to graduate and who was given latitude to pursue her career by her principal, would stay at her manager's house and use her days to write with some of Nashville's best. She began attracting label notice and by her senior year, she had landed a record deal. She cut several sides, including a duet with country legend Kenny Rogers, whom she joined on tour, but ultimately she and the label parted ways about the time she met Bright.
"I was really young and wasn't sure of the musical direction to take," she says. Her writing had been improving steadily, though, and that was key to her progress.
" I began writing with Chris Tompkins, who has become one of my best friends. He really influenced my writing a lot and helped make me better. In fact, it was some of the stuff we wrote together that helped get Mark interested."
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.
"Afterward, they said, 'Go make the record,'" she says. They began recording in the fall of 2007.
The result, Right Road Now, sums up the journey, and Whitney is certain it captures her essence.
"I can honestly say there's nothing I would change about it," she says.
Bright concurs, and adds, “Making the record with her felt like Christmas every day. We were honestly sad to finish it.”
If the right relationships, like the one she has developed with Bright, have provided the road, her own persistence has kept her moving along it. It's a trait she's had since she was tiny.
"I went to preschool with 13 little boys," she says with a laugh. "I was the only girl, so I acted like them. I would fight with them and I'd be in the naughty chair every day. Being stubborn and headstrong was a good thing when it came to music. You've got to know what you want to do in this business and hope eventually it will pay off."
For the young woman from Scotts Hill, it certainly has.
WHITNEY DUNCAN
RIGHT ROAD NOW
SONG BY SONG
WHEN I SAID I WOULD--Whitney Duncan, John Shanks, Gordie Sampson
I think this was the third day we wrote together. We wrote it pretty quickly, and I remember we had the chorus first and then we looked around for John and he was in there putting guitars down. We're like, 'Whoa! Let's finish the song before we start making the record!" When I started doing scratch vocals, I don't think we even had the bridge written yet. But then I remember walking away that day not being able to get the song out of my head. I sang it all night long. I knew then that it was special.
LITTLE BY LITTLE--Whitney Duncan, John Shanks, Hillary Lindsay
This is one that happened really fast. It's about a girl who needs some time for herself. She can't be what this guy needs her to be, and she's strong enough to say, "No, I need some time to step back. I need time for myself, time to grow and put things back together." It's a strong woman song. That was another day we started tracking on the same day we wrote it, and everybody's loved it since the beginning.
OPEN ROAD--Whitney Duncan, John Shanks, Gordie Sampson
This is basically the story of my life. Some songs are more personal than others, and this is the most personal on the record. Growing up in a small town, having this big dream, not really being sure what the future holds--life is this big open road, and I'm just going down it, hoping for the best.
RIGHT ROAD NOW--Whitney Duncan, John Shanks, Brett James
This is one of the first songs we wrote for the record. It's a strong woman song--one that is saying, "You want to leave me? That's fine. Bring it on. You've been a cloud over my life long enough and it's time to let the sun come out." It's looking at a supposedly bad thing and seeing it as opportunity for something better.
BURN IT DOWN--Whitney Duncan, John Shanks, Chris Tompkins
John had this idea, and at first I was actually a little opposed to writing it. I'd written a few songs with this basic idea before. But we wound up taking this one from a different angle. It's a very serious song--she's not kidding around. She's angry and she wants to forget the relationship, wants it all to go away, good and bad. I love the melody, and the second verse has some of my favorite all-time lines in it.
FIREFLIES--Whitney Duncan, John Shanks, Mark Bright
This was the first time the three of us had written together, and those two are like teenage boys when you get them together. It's hilarious. They're always talking about production, or about guitars--they both have this obsession with buying them. I had a hard time keeping them focused on the writing. We just wanted this to be a sweet song about a relationship that's been around for a while but still feels new.
GOD CLOSE YOUR EYES--Whitney Duncan, John Shanks, Hillary Lindsay, Gordie Sampson
I had written with Hillary and Gordy separately, and we decided all of would get together one day. We wanted to tell a story about a woman who had been beaten by her husband and who wound up shooting him and asking God to overlook it because if she hadn't he would have killed her first. This deals with a cause I really believe in, and if I could do anything for worthwhile causes, it would be for abused women and children.
THE BED THAT YOU MADE--Whitney Duncan, John Shanks, Hillary Lindsay
This song started out with us just goofing around. It actually started with handclaps, something to get that beat going, and we started writing and it came out great. This is one that just feels so good. It's about a girl getting a little revenge--"You messed up, and now you have to suffer the consequences."
KINDA CRAZY--Whitney Duncan, Chris Tompkins, Mark Bright
This is the first time I had ever written with Mark. He had been so busy in the studio. I convinced him to come in and write with me and Chris and we came up with this. It's definitely the new love, infatuation-phase song, and we had a lot of fun writing it.
COMING HOME TO YOU--Whitney Duncan, Troy Verges, Blair Daly
We were trying to get the last three songs to track for the record. I said, "Guys, if we can write up-tempo, that would be awesome--maybe something positive –something that makes you feel good." When we turned this song in, Mark just flipped out about it. It's about a couple just caught up in real life, the way it pulls you in different directions. Life's crazy, and we're all running around, but at the end of the day, I'm still coming home to you.
AWAY--Whitney Duncan, Mike Busbee, Greg Becker
I wrote this one a few years ago, and it had been on hold for Keith Urban and Rascal Flatts. Since I didn't have a deal at the time, I couldn't record it, but it's always been one of my favorites. It stayed in the back of my mind and I knew that when I could record it, I would. Mark has always been a huge fan of this song as well. He always wanted to cut this one, so we did and I think it's just a really emotional song, and a great one for the last song on the record.