Tenney

Hot Chicken & Bright Lights

When the rehearsal wraps up, the family drives home. When they get there, Tenney’s seven-year-old sister, Aubrey, is doing cartwheels across the lawn in front of Mom’s food truck, Georgia’s Genuine Tennessee Hot Chicken, painted robin’s-egg blue with tomato-red lettering. Mom hurries out of the garage, her carrot-colored hair pinned under a bandanna, loading food bins with hummingbird energy. “Finally!” she calls, nodding at Tenney’s guitar case, since they’re wheels up in ten minutes.

Mom asks how rehearsal went, and Tenney admits they only got through three songs. As the Tri-Stars’ former lead singer, Mom knows a band always comes with drama. “Jesse happened,” Dad explains, ruffling Tenney’s hair, while Mason insists they still sounded good.

Aubrey cartwheels over, her sparkly tutu bouncing as she lands with a thud on the grass, thrilled they’re headed to Centennial Park to sell hot chicken at Belle Starr’s outdoor concert, and asks again when she’ll get to perform with the Tri-Stars. Dad promises soon. Every Grant plays an instrument, Mom on vocals and Autoharp, Mason on mandolin and drums, and Aubrey learning accordion. Dad plays anything with strings, and always says the Grants have music in their bones.

Upstairs, Tenney ducks into the bedroom she shares with Aubrey, whose glittery half looks like a craft store exploded, then pauses at her own side, walled with photos of Patsy Cline, Joan Baez, and Johnny Cash, and a framed 78 rpm record of Elvis Presley singing “Hound Dog.” Before they go, Tenney spots her songwriting journal, crowded with rosebuds, half-finished lyrics, and doodles, and longs to work out the melody stuck in her head, but Mom’s honk from the driveway cuts that short.

Tenney packs herself into the food truck’s jump seats with Mason and Aubrey, and the Grant family crosses the Cumberland River toward downtown. Aubrey begs for the radio, and Belle Starr’s hit “Star Like Me” fills the cab with a bubbly, computerized beat. Aubrey sings along, and even Mom joins in. Dad calls the song catchy, and Tenney privately agrees the hook is hard to shake, though the guitars sound computerized. Mason begs to turn off the corny pop song, clamping his hands over his ears.

Passing Music Row, Tenney cranes her neck at the bungalows and office buildings where Elvis, the Beach Boys, and LeAnn Rimes once recorded. At a red light outside Silver Sun Records’s boxy building, she points it out, and Mom answers stiffly that yes, that’s where she recorded her demo years ago, calling the memory only “memorable” before driving on.

At Centennial Park, the family sets up in a lot across the lawn from the Parthenon replica, its white columns towering behind the stage where Belle Starr will perform. Mom fires up the fryer for her spicy, honey-sweetened hot chicken, served over white bread with pickles. Dad drums up business with a guitar jingle about the chicken, and Tenney and Aubrey join in with jazz hands and off-key harmonies, drawing a steady line of customers for the next hour. When the show starts, Aubrey climbs onto Dad’s shoulders to see, and Mom apologizes for Tenney’s bad view, but Tenney doesn’t mind; live music makes everything feel brighter. The stars overhead seem to dance. When the set ends to roaring applause, Tenney asks Mom if she misses performing. Mom only shrugs, “Sometimes.” Tenney wonders whether she’ll ever play for a crowd that size, and Mom’s advice is simple: make the music you love, and the rest will take care of itself.