Tenney

Nashville, TN – 2017
Author Kellen Hertz
Cover Illustrator Juliana Kolesova
Originally Published © 2017 American Girl
ISBN 9781338148831
 

Lost in the Music

Tenney is at her family’s band practice. As usual, their lead singer, Jesse is being overdramatic and a piece of work. The Tri-Stars used to be a family band, but Tenney’s mother quit the band to open a food truck. So now they have Jesse.

But Tenney has a secret: she would love to sing the lead, and she’d love it if the Tri-Stars could perform one of her songs! But instead, she’s stuck singing harmony and guitar while Jesse, the diva queen, sings lead vocals.

 

Hot Chicken & Bright Lights

As Tenney, her brother Mason, and her father arrive home, Mom is just getting ready to leave with Aubrey. Tenney rushes upstairs to change her shoes when she spots her songwriting journal. Although she’d like nothing more than to jump into working on the lyrics for her latest song, she knows that’ll just have to wait.

The food truck is on their way to work a country music in the park night, where Belle Starr will perform an outdoor concert. The family expects to get a great turnout looking for hot chicken!

As the family watches the concert from a distance, Tenney wonders if she’ll ever be able to perform for an audience that big. Mom reminds her that first, she should play the music she likes, and the rest will take care of itself.

 

The Jamboree

The next week in school, Tenney’s best friend, Jaya, and her make their way to homeroom. Ms. Carter, their teacher, announces that they’re looking for volunteers for this year’s Jamboree. They’d partner with seniors from the Lillian Street Senior Center to plan and host the event. Jaya and Tenney sign up together—it could be fun!

At lunchtime, the fourteen kids signed up to volunteer for the Jamboree join together for their first meeting. A lot of ideas are thrown around, but one particular girl, Holliday Hayes, seems to always be in a competition with Tenney and Jaya. And when it comes time to vote for a chairperson, both Jaya and Holliday raise their hands.

Holliday squeezes the winning vote by offering to try to get Belle Starr and have an award-winning amount of cupcakes. And lastly, Ms. Carter announces she’s posting a sign-up sheet for those that want to perform or entertain during the Jamboree. Tenney considers adding her name, but she’d like to work on finishing her song first.

 

Lillian Street Senior Center

When it comes time for the students to find a partner at the senior center, it seems like everybody has paired up already. But there’s one lady left sitting in the corner—a quiet and cranky woman of the name of Portia. She and Tenney have trouble finding common interests they both have, and the afternoon meeting is awkward for Tenney.

That evening, Tenney tries to work on her lyrics, but she has trouble figuring out which words to use. What does she want the song to say? What words will make the song rhyme? She loves the melody of her song, but can’t figure out those lyrics. Unfortunately, Tenney goes to bed with unfinished lyrics.

 

Center Stage

The Tri-Stars have a performance at the Neighborhood Association Mixer. But just as they’re getting set up, Dad calls Jesse. Jesse quit the band. Now, they’re down a lead singer! Dad offers to sing lead on some of the songs, but he can’t quite do all of them. Mason volunteers Tenney to sing a couple of the songs. She feels confident that she knows the words and the parts.

But as she steps up to the microphone, she realizes she’s off. The mic is too high, and she automatically sings her normal harmony part, instead of the melody. But with Mason and Dad’s singing supporting her, she pulls through and eventually finds comfort on the center stage. At the end, Tenney reflects that it felt like she was floating! Dad and Mason exclaim that Tenney was fantastic.

 

Ellie Cale

The next day, Tenney is doing inventory at her Dad’s music store. While she’s taking a break in the back room, a woman comes in and introduces herself as Ellie Cale, A&R Coordinator with Mockingbird Records. Ellie offers Tenney the opportunity to come play at a talent showcase at the Bluebird Cafe. The Bluebird Cafe is a music club that typically only features talented and established singer-songwriters—it’s an honor to be invited to play.

But when Tenney asks her parents if she can do the showcase, they’re hesitant. They don’t want the showcase to lead to something bigger, which could come with bigger problems.

 

Find Your Voice

Tenney continues to work on her song lyrics. She is still hopeful she can do the showcase, and wants to be ready.

After school, the Jamboree committee goes to the senior center. Tenney notices that Portia has calluses on her left hand, similar to herself. This means that Portia is most likely a musician! It turns out that Portia has her own guitar, and offers to let Tenney play a little something. Portia tells Tenney to focus on what she wants to say with her music, and then she can find her voice.

 

Sunday Supper

A week later, Tenney asks her parents again about the showcase. To Tenney’s dismay, they tell her that she’s not allowed to perform the showcase. Tenney remains disappointed the rest of the night. Even with her mother’s reassurances it was all going to be okay, she couldn’t help feeling like she may never get another chance like this again.

 

In the Spotlight

The next day, Tenney’s class takes a field trip to the Ryman Auditorium. They get a backstage tour, and then they each get a chance to stand center stage in a spotlight. Most of the students walk on, do something fun, and then walk off, but when Tenney goes center, she is transported to a world of her own. She completely zones out, and can’t help but imagine what it’d be like to perform in a spotlight like that.

 

Breakthrough

After dinner, Tenney again sits down with her song lyrics. After a few hours of coming up with nothing, she moves outside. When she sees her mother get home, weary and tired, she realizes what the inspiration for her song is: her mother’s love.

And like that, her lyrics are forming themselves. Tenney goes to bed with a full rough draft.

 

A Stronger Bridge

Tenney is eager to share her song with Portia and get Portia’s opinion. Portia is able to quickly pick up the melody of the song, and play it flawlessly. Portia is still a pretty good musician, even if her stroke a couple years ago makes it harder to play. While Portia agrees the song is strong, she says it needs a slightly stronger bridge. But when Tenney asks if Portia can play with her at the Jamboree, Portia pulls away and says she doesn’t perform anymore.

That night, after Mason hears Tenney’s new song, he knows that he has to help her do something… he has to help Tenney show Mom and Dad that Tenney is ready to perform.

 

Printers Alley

The next week, Mason picks Tenney and Jaya up from school and takes them downtown, to a street called Printers Alley. Mason convinces Tenney to set up their amps anywhere, and to just start playing. At first, Tenney feels strange just asking to play music out of nowhere. But after a fun introduction from Mason, she opens up and begins to feel comfortable.

By the end of her mini-performance, Tenney has gathered quite a crowd.

On the way home, Tenney learns that Mason never actually asked permission for Tenney to perform. But Tenney realizes that since their neighbor saw her perform, she had to come clean.

At dinner, Tenney asks once again if she can play the showcase. When her mom says no, she accidentally blurts out that she played her song that day in front of an audience! Her parents, astonished, are upset and angry with both her and Mason, and they both end up grounded.

 

A Second Chance

After dinner, Tenney is frustrated and upset, and her parents are fighting. She goes outside to hum her song to make herself feel better. Her mom walks up on her and overhears the song.

Her mother explains why she feels so hesitant about letting Tenney get into the music business. Apparently, Tenney’s mother’s mom pushed her very hard to be a successful singer-songwriter. She was writing her own music, and was very talented. When she was sixteen, her mother took her to perform for a producer, who wanted to sign her. The producer paid her a few thousand dollars to record a single.

But the song she ended up recording didn’t feel like her. After the recording session, the producer said that to keep it up, her mother would have to dye her hair blonde, lose ten pounds, and start wearing high heels. At that moment, Tenney’s mom realized that this wasn’t what she wanted to do—she wanted to record music that truly felt like herself.

But it was too late. During the signing process, she accidentally signed all of her music over to the producer. Legally, she couldn’t get any of it back. And when she tried to talk to other record labels about being signed over there, it turns out the first producer blackballed her… she was officially labeled as “hard to work with.”

But all of that being said, Tenney’s mom admits that if this is something Tenney really wants to do, then she has to let her try. Tenney’s mom won’t be able to block all of the potential pain and hurt from Tenney, but she’ll do her very best to make sure nothing similar to what happened with her will happen again.

 

Nothing Special

The next day, Holliday overhears that Tenney will be performing at the Bluebird Cafe. She makes a snide comment that Tenney isn’t Taylor Swift. Tenney is nothing special, and she’s sure Tenney’s music won’t be either.

 

Backflips & Butterflies

The morning of the showcase, Tenney is super excited. She spends hours practicing the trickier parts of her songs. She picks out new clothes to wear. Her father even gifts her her dream guitar to play on… a turquoise blue with white roses on the front. Tenney is nervous and excited to play with it at the showcase.

 

The Bluebird Cafe

Upon arriving at the Bluebird Cafe, Tenney and her family get settled into a table. Jaya shortly joins them. As people start to arrive, Tenney sees Ellie Cale and her Uncle Zane, the head of Mockingbird Records. Even Portia arrives! And at the very end, she sees Holliday with her mother.

As Tenney steps up to the stage, she begins to get nervous. Her dress feels scratchy, and Holliday’s words are clanging around in her head. Tenney tentatively introduces herself, and stars her song. But her tempo is off and her A string is sharp. She tries to readjust, but ends up dropping her pick.

 

Feeling the Heat

Tenney worries she’s screwed everything up, but then realizes that all she has to do is be herself. She picks herself up again, retunes her guitar, and starts again.

As her song finishes, she gets a standing ovation! Everybody loved the song. Tenney tries to find Portia, but gets sidetracked by Holliday’s mother, who is gushing at Tenney’s talent. She accidentally mentions that Holliday actually quit practicing and is tone deaf, but if she hadn’t, maybe Holliday could be performing, too.

Zane invites Tenney and her parents out to a diner for dinner. Zane asks Tenney a few questions, and then tells her that she is very good and talented. But he really wanted to see Tenney own the stage the whole time she was up there, and instead he saw a nervous child who isn’t ready for a record deal.

Although Tenney handles the news with grace, inside, her heart is falling through the floor. Although her parents try to make her feel better, she can’t help but feel like she’s never going to want to play music again.

 

A New Debut

Next week is the Jamboree. Tenney decides she doesn’t want to perform after all, and sacrifices her spot on the line-up.

The senior center is all set up for the Jamboree. There are lights, food stands, a small stage, music, and more! When Portia asks if Tenney is ready to perform again, Tenney tells her she won’t be performing. Portia is disappointed. But, then Portia comes back and says she’s going to end up playing in Tenney’s spot! Tenney is surprised. But then, Tenney’s mom recognizes Portia as the woman who wrote Tenney’s favorite song! Portia explains that meeting Tenney and seeing Tenney’s passion for music has encouraged her to start playing and performing again as well. And when Portia asks if Tenney will join her on stage, Tenney says yes.

For the performance, Tenney has the chance to perform her song again… even better than her last performance. And for the finale, Tenney is joined on stage by Portia, and together they play Tenney’s favorite: April Springs.

 

Just the Beginning

The next week, Tenney discovers at school that somebody took a video of their Jamboree performance, and it is getting a ton of hits! It’s already up to 10,000 views in one weekend!

That afternoon, Tenney goes to her dad’s shop, eager to show him and Mason the video. She is surprised to see Zane there. Zane explains that after seeing Tenney perform again at the Jamboree, he realized that if he didn’t make a deal with her now, somebody else would. Although he’s not ready to offer her a record deal, he does want to work with her and mentor her, with the promise that in the future, he would offer her a record deal. Tenney calmly responds that she needs to think about it, but inside, she’s jumping for joy.

That evening, Tenney reflects on how far she’s come as a singer-songwriter. She and her mom both know that as long as Tenney continues to write what’s true to her, everything else would work itself out.

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