{"id":214624,"date":"2026-06-09T15:01:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/214624\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T15:01:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:01:35","slug":"born-71-years-ago-today-in-pennsylvania-the-country-music-songwriter-and-vocalist-who-penned-hits-for-ronnie-milsap-patty-loveless-and-clay-walker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/214624\/","title":{"rendered":"Born 71 Years Ago Today in Pennsylvania, the Country Music Songwriter and Vocalist Who Penned Hits for Ronnie Milsap, Patty Loveless, and Clay Walker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite releasing two solo albums, Curtis Wright does his best work with and for others. Born in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, on this day (June 6) in 1955, the country music artist has played with Reba McEntire and penned hits for artists like Ronnie Milsap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Curtis Wright Has Written for Patty Loveless, Rhonda Vincent, and More<\/p>\n

Curtis Wright began his country music career as a member of a band called the Country Generation, which later became the Super Grit Cowboy Band. He played lead guitar for the latter, which landed on the country songs chart in 1971 with \u201cIf You Don\u2019t Know Me by Now\u201d.<\/p>\n

Later, Wright performed as a backup signer and guitarist for country singer Vern Gosdin. During that time, Patty Loveless recorded \u201cYou Saved Me\u201d,<\/a> his first song cut by a major artist, in 1988.<\/p>\n

The following year, he quit Gosdin\u2019s band and wrote the song \u201cA Woman in Love\u201d, which Ronnie Milsap took to number one on the country charts.<\/p>\n

The Trouble With His Own Solo Career<\/p>\n

The same year he wrote \u201cA Woman in Love\u201d, Curtis Wright signed with Airborne Records and released \u201cShe\u2019s Got a Man on Her Mind\u201d, which climbed to number 38 on the country songs chart. He planned to release his solo debut, Slick Hick, in March 1990, but financial issues with the label barred its release.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI am a man without a company, dead in the water,\u201d Wright told an Ohio news outlet. \u201cI\u2019ve got some songs about real life out there that people will say, \u2018Yeah, I feel like that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Before releasing his self-titled debut album on another label in 1992, Wright co-wrote Shenandoah\u2019s number-one hit \u201cNext to You, Next to Me\u201d. He would later join Shenandoah as its lead singer in the late 1990s before leaving in 2007 to tour with Reba McEntire\u2019s band.<\/p>\n

[RELATED: 4 Ronnie Milsap Songs That Prove He Is One of the Greatest Country Artists of All Time]<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1994, Wright formed the country music duo Orrall & Wright with Robert Ellis Orrall. Releasing just one self-titled album later that year, the pair received a Duo of the Year nomination from the\u00a0Country Music Association before resuming their solo careers.<\/p>\n

Curtis Wright has also toured as a member of Pure Prairie League and as a a background vocalist for Tim McGraw, The Eagles, Darryl Worley and Billy Dean.<\/p>\n

Featured image by R. Diamond\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite releasing two solo albums, Curtis Wright does his best work with and for others. Born in Huntingdon,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[94011,6891,94012,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-214624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-1950s","tag-country-music","tag-curtis-wright","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}