Whitney Wolanin

Florida-based vocal powerhouse Whitney Wolanin, who started singing at the age of two, launched her professional recording career at thirteen and remained a steady presence on adult contemporary airwaves after issuing her debut album Funkology XIII during summer 2005. The project’s duet “It Takes Two,” pairing her with Survivor frontman Jimi Jamison and co-produced by Motown Funk Brother bassist Bob Babbitt, climbed to number nine on FMQB’s AC40 chart, earned the top most-added slot, and logged twenty weeks on the tally. Her teen-empowerment single “Good” lingered on the same chart for forty-seven weeks and peaked at number seven; the track appeared on the Eye of the Tiger compilation sold at University of Memphis NCAA men’s basketball contests to benefit the ailing former coach Larry Finch, alongside Memphis stalwarts Al Green and the Bo-Keys. In the 2006 holiday season, her rendition of “Frosty the Snowman” from the follow-up Christmasology reached number eleven on Radio & Records’ AC survey.

Although earlier releases had highlighted Wolanin’s interpretive skills, the track “Loud and Clear” and additional material prepared for a late-2008 multi-track EP marked her initial efforts at songwriting. Adopting a piecemeal release approach, she sent “Loud and Clear” to DJs in multiple formats so they could craft custom mixes; one extended remix later peaked at number twenty on record-pool charts. The radio edit reached more than eight million moviegoers in theaters throughout 2007, playing before and after Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. MTV licensed the song as well, placing it on The Hills and Newport Harbor, while her arrangement of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” aired across 140 countries via the EWTN network later that year.

Wolanin has fronted her band onstage since age twelve during the yearly Christmasology concerts that support children in need and sustain the endowed Rockin’ Christmas Fund scholarship. Beyond nationwide visits to children’s hospitals, she has served as spokesperson for Youth Crime Watch of America, guiding young people away from online hazards; her safety guidelines appear in multiple languages on the YWCA site. An alumna of an IB World School, Wolanin balanced full-time studies in fall 2008 with her roles as songwriter, recording artist, and performer. Subsequent EPs arrived with Girl in 2009 and Whitney Wolanin 1 in 2011. The 2012 single “Honesty” followed and later surfaced on the mini-album Let’s Be Honest Part 1. In 2013 she broadened her digital footprint via the single and video “Wrong Guy (I Did It This Time).”