Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer

Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer

Chely Wright, singer, songwriter, country music star, writes in this moving, telling memoir about her life and her career; about growing up in Americaâ€™s heartland, the youngest of three children; about barely remembering a time when she didnâ€™t know she was different.
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She writes about her parents, putting down roots in their twenties in the farming town of Wellsville, Kansas, Old Glory flying atop the poles on the townâ€™s manicured lawns, and being raised to believe that hard work, honesty, and determination would take her far.
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She writes of making up her mind at a young age to become a country music star, knowing then that her feelings and crushes on girls were â€œsinfulâ€ and hoping and praying that she would somehow be â€œfixed.â€ (â€œDear God, please donâ€™t let me be gay. I promise not to lie. I promise not to steal. I promise to always believe in you . . . Please take it away.â€)
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We see her, high school homecoming queen, heading out on her own at seventeen and landing a job as a featured vocalist on the Ozark Jubilee (the show that started Brenda Lee, Red Foley, and Porter Wagoner), being cast in Country Music U.S.A., doing four live shows a day, andâ€”after only a few months in Nashvilleâ€”her dream coming true, performing on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry . . .
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She describes writing and singing her own songs for producers whoâ€™d discovered and recorded the likes of Reba McEntire, Shania Twain, and Toby Keith, who heard in her music something special and signed her to a record contract, releasing her first album and sending her out on the road on her first bus tour . . . She writes of sacrificing all for a shot at success that would come a couple of years later with her first hit single, â€œShut Up And Driveâ€ . . . her songs (from her fourth album, Single White Female) climbing the Billboard chart for twenty-nine weeks, hitting the #1 spot . . .Â
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She writes about the friends she made along the wayâ€”Vince Gill, Brad Paisley, and othersâ€”writing songs, recording and touring together, some of the friendships developing into romantic attachments that did not end happily . . . Keeping the truth of who she was clutched deep inside, trying to ignore it in a world she longed to be a part ofâ€”and now wasâ€”a world in which country music stars had never been, could not be, openly gay . . .
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She writes of the very real prospect of losing everything sheâ€™d worked so hard to create . . . doing her best to have a real lifeâ€”her best not good enough . . .
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And in the face of everything she did to keep herself afloat, she writes about how the vortex of success and hiding who she was took its toll: her life, a tangled mess she didnâ€™t see coming, didnâ€™t want to; and, finally, finding the guts to untangle herself from the image of the country music star sheâ€™d become, an image steeped in long-standing ideals and notions about whoâ€”and whatâ€”a country artist is, and what their fans expect them to be . . .
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I am a songwriter,â€ she writes. â€œI am a singer of my songsâ€”and I have a story to tell. As Iâ€™ve traveled this path that has delivered me to where I am today, my monument of thanks, paying honor to God, remains. I will do all I can with what I have been given . . .â€
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Like Me is fearless, inspiring, true.
Country USA
Brand Pantheon
Manufacturer Pantheon
Binding Hardcover
ReleaseDate 2010-05-04
UnitCount 1
Format Deckle Edge
EANs 9780307378866

Country	USA
Brand	Pantheon
Manufacturer	Pantheon
Binding	Hardcover
ReleaseDate	2010-05-04
UnitCount	1
Format	Deckle Edge
EANs	9780307378866

Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer

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