IT’S CRAZY HOW fast life can change. Two weeks ago, I was crammed in a tiny RV, living and touring with my family. Now, I’m standing in an equally cramped space, but it’s covered wall-to-wall with spongy black foam, and the only things in here with me are a microphone and a music stand holding the pages of “Notice Me.” Dan liked the demo I recorded with Shannon, and if he likes the studio recording, it will be the first song on my album.
A voice blares through the small space: “This time, hold that note in the lift a little longer.” I look at the producer Dan hired for me and give him a thumbs-up through the glass that separates us. Jack Horn is supposed to be the best. He and his team of sound guys have worked with everybody from Sugarland to Willie Nelson, and although he’s nice enough, he’s all business. I’m used to performing for live audiences, people who stomp their feet and bob their heads, not a forty-year-old in a backward baseball cap with a constant worry line between his eyes. Every time I sing “Notice Me,” Jack gives me directions on how to do it better. I thought I’d be in and out of here, but it’s been all morning and we still don’t have it right. I’ve had to pee for thirty minutes now, but I’m afraid to mention it.
“So, from the pre-chorus, then?” I ask timidly.
He nods from the control room and the music pours into my headphones. I start in on the lyrics again, leaning toward the microphone. My fingers ache for an instrument, but we laid down Maybelle’s fiddling pass yesterday, and we’re just doing vocals right now. I had no idea that recording a song required so many steps. The whole process is way more complicated than I ever imagined. I thought for sure my family would be my backing band, but Dan nixed the idea in favor of what he called “session veterans” who already know the sound we’re going for. My dad hadn’t seemed surprised, but my brothers were pretty mad when I told them.
“So we’re not good enough for you anymore?” Dylan had demanded.
“You totally are,” I assured him. “I’m definitely going to play that song ‘Before Music’ for Dan. And since you and I wrote it together, you’ll get a songwriting credit if we use it on the album.”
“But I’m not a good-enough musician.”
“That’s not what he meant,” I tried to explain.
“She’s even sticking up for him now,” Jacob chimed in, pulling up the black hood of his sweatshirt and grabbing the car keys. “Let’s get out of here.”
Then they took a drive to who knows where, not coming home until after dinner. I wanted to talk to them about it again, but my dad told me they needed a little time and space. “There are a lot of changes coming that we’re all going to have to get used to,” he said.
Tell me about it, I think now. I love the magic of performing for live audiences, even though our shows are exhausting, but it’s a whole different beast trying to keep up that same energy in the studio, take after take. And this afternoon, I’ll be singing and recording every piece of harmony myself. All this for just one song.
“Stop, stop, Bird.” Jack sighs into the speaker by the soundboard. He takes off his headphones and stands up. My heart sinks. I look over at my dad for some moral support, but he’s not even paying attention anymore. He is completely engrossed in his cell phone, and honestly, I can’t blame him. He’s heard this song a million times by now.
“Sorry I’m messing up so much,” I say into the mic.
Jack leans over the soundboard and pushes the speaker button. “Are you kidding?” he asks, seeming genuinely surprised. “You’re doing great.”
“Yeah,” he explains. “I’m just a perfectionist.”
“Oh my gosh,” I say, letting out a breath I didn’t know I was holding and clutching at the ties of my hooded sweatshirt. “I thought you wanted to pull your hair out.”
“No, not at all,” he assures me. “I just want it to be spot-on perfect, okay?”
“Okay.”
He removes the pencil tucked behind his right ear and holds up his sheet music. “Make a note after the bridge,” he instructs me. It feels so weird to be having an entire conversation through a giant pane of glass. “When you come back in, I really want you to punch it. This is the big moment, okay? And when we nail that, let’s take a break.”
“Cool,” I say, marking it.
I readjust my headphones and take a drink of water, relief washing over me. I’m not majorly screwing up; I’m just working toward perfection. I can handle that.
“Here we go, Bird,” Jack says, sitting back down and motioning to his sound team.
The music flows again, my cue in two bars. I lean nearer to the mic and focus on the feelings behind the words. I close my eyes and let my voice fill the room, bring my hand to my chest and come in stronger at the final chorus, letting loose with the vocals, pleading with this boy of mine to actually be mine.
“I never knew the words ‘let’s take a break’ could be so powerful,” I say to my dad outside the bathroom. “That was brutal.”
Together, we walk down the small stairs, both of us eager to get a little fresh air before heading back into the studio.
“I thought you sounded great,” Dad says. “The first few times he stopped you, I thought maybe he was hearing nerves or maybe you were flat a couple of times, but then I was just as baffled as you were. I don’t know what those guys were hearing, but I guess that’s why they’re the professionals.”
“I guess,” I say, pushing open the tinted-glass door.
And then I get a wonderful surprise.
“Bird!” my mom says, walking up the sidewalk with my brothers behind her. Her arms are open wide, and I let her envelop me in a big hug. When I smell her honeysuckle body lotion, I’m instantly happier.
“Hey, Mom,” I say, squeezing tightly. “Hey, guys,” I say to my brothers, who seem to have forgiven me. “I didn’t know y’all were coming.”
“We want to see where all the magic happens,” Dylan says, smiling. Jacob nods and I am so glad they are here.
“Well then, follow me,” I say, feeling a much-needed burst of energy.
I lead my family inside and show them around. It’s pretty exciting, giving everybody a peek into what has somehow become my whole life in just a couple of weeks. I introduce them to Jack and the rest of the crew and point out the live room, where we record.
“Speaking of,” Jack says, swiveling around halfway in his chair, “we should probably get back at it.”
“Could we stay and watch a while?” Jacob asks.
Jack shrugs. “Sure.”
As my family squeezes onto the sofa behind the sound guys, I head back into the live room. I worry briefly that they’ll figure out that this song is about Adam, but then I realize they’re all going to hear it eventually, anyway. Everybody will. Adam will.
As I lift my headphones from the hook on the mic stand, I glance up at my family, whose faces range from surprised to amused to see me in such a professional setting. And then, when the instrumental track plays and I start to sing, I think I can see them settle into another expression, one that makes my heart feel like it might burst. Pride. I sing like I would at a Barrett Family Band performance, as if we were live, with just one shot to nail it, and I forget about being perfect for a moment. I just sing.
When I finish, I see my family clapping and smiling behind the glass before Jack presses the speaker button, and then I hear them woo-hooing loudly. “Your first fans,” he says, grinning.
The door opens again, and Dan walks in with a sharply dressed woman I’ve never seen before. She’s wearing a loose fuchsia top with a tight black pencil skirt and super high stilettos. Her brown hair is slicked back in a sleek bun, and she is carrying an iPad in her hand.
“You’ve got visitors,” Jack says into my headphones from the control room. “Let’s take five, everybody.”
I take off my headphones as Dan motions through the glass for me to join them. Jack and the sound guys are milling about, and I see my dad introducing my family to Dan. By the time I try to push the control room door open, the room is crowded and pretty suffocating.
“Come get us when you’re ready,” Jack says to Dan, leading his sound team down the hall to the lounge.
“We’re going to get out of here, too,” my mom says graciously. “It was really our pleasure to finally meet you, Dan. And good job, Bird, honey. That song is just beautiful.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I say, giving her another quick hug before they leave.
And then it’s just my dad, Dan, and the mystery woman, who is staring at me as if I am a museum exhibit instead of a live human being.
“Bird, Judd, I want you to meet Anita Handler,” Dan says, introducing the woman. Her heavily painted pink lips are stretched into a closed smile and even in her four-inch heels, she still only comes up to my shoulders. She pumps our hands once, strong and efficient, as Dan continues with his hearty introduction. “She’ll be your publicist and is the best in the biz. I had a heck of a time getting her down here from New York.”
“I’m more of a rock and roller than a country girl,” she explains frankly in a thick New York accent. “But I figure, eh, a little fresh air won’t kill me.”
I’m pretty sure my lower jaw hits the ground, especially if the expression on my face looks anything like the one on my dad’s, but Dan just laughs and shakes his head. “You’ve got to know her to love her, and you will when you do,” he assures us. “And she may not care for the music, but she cares for her musicians in a big way. She’s responsible for the images of a lot of major chart toppers, like—”
“Oh, Dan, stop. You’ll make me blush,” she interrupts.
Dan smiles. “Anyway, Anita was with Allied for the last five years, working out of our New York office, but she’s been in the business for almost twenty.”
“Which means I got started at five years old,” she says quickly. My dad and Dan laugh because she’s probably more like forty-five. Still, the woman does look amazing. And when she grabs my forearm and turns the full power of her thickly made-up eyes on me, I admire the intensity there. “Bird, now that we’re working together, I need you to think of me as your new best friend, your BFF,” she says in total seriousness. “You will tell me everything. No surprises, no holding back. You don’t know what will connect with your fans, but I do.”
I’ve never really had a best friend before, but this doesn’t sound like the way those things are supposed to go. It feels weird and, honestly, a little demanding for a stranger to expect you to just spill your guts to her.
But I trust Dan. I don’t know what having a publicist entails, but if working with Anita will help me connect with my fans—or the fans I am supposedly going to have—then I’ll get on board.
“I’ve never had a BFF,” I say, smiling down at her. “I hope we don’t have to get matching necklaces or something.”
Anita rolls her eyes. “Oh God, I haven’t worn one of those since the eighties.”
“So…” I say, doing the math in my head. “When you were three years old?”
“Oh, Silver, she’s cheeky.” Anita looks at me appraisingly. “We’re going to get along just fine.”
When I look at Dan, he’s beaming at the two of us, and I feel like I just passed some sort of test.
“Hallelujah.” I sigh, peeling the headphones off my ears. I stretch big, twisting and nearly touching the ceiling, before joining Jack, my dad, and the rest of the guys in the control room. “I thought ‘let’s take a break’ was the sweetest phrase in history, but I like the sound of ‘that’s a wrap’ even better.”
“Me too,” one of the guys responds, yawning even though he’s on at least his sixth cup of coffee today.
Without warning, the instrumental track starts again. Jack smiles and gestures to the sofa. I plop down next to my dad, who stretches his arm around the couch behind me, and then I hear myself. Or a version of myself about a bazillion times better than the real thing.
“That’s me?”
Jack smiles softly and leans back in his chair as the music plays. He closes his eyes. I do the same and realize instantly why he pushed me so hard. That’s my voice, but smoother, better. That’s my poetry, spun from the pages of my journal into song. The harmonies blend like honey in warm tea. And although I was worried about the drums and electric guitar, they actually give the song a fun, effervescent sound. I am most happy about the homage to my bluegrass roots: woven through it all is the fiddle.
I open my eyes again and see that everybody in the room is smiling as widely as I am, their feet tapping along like mine. The song that I’ve sung into the ground today now sounds fresh as spring.
“It’s still rough,” Jack warns as the last notes fade away. “It still needs more mixing, but I think—”
“It’s perfect!” I shout, launching myself off the couch, nearly knocking him out of his swivel chair with a giant hug. I stand up and look around at all three guys behind the soundboard. “You did it. I love it. You made me sound like a real singer,” I gush. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Bird,” Jack says, “you are a real singer. All we did was record what’s already there.”
He pushes PLAY again, which I take as the best compliment of my life. Not his words, but his actions. Seems to me that a man who’s heard the same melodies over and over all week, who’s recorded the same song on at least four different instruments and with at least three different harmonies, would be sick to death of this song, but he’s not. As “Notice Me” fills the room one more time, I shove my hands into the pockets of my Open Highway sweatshirt and let the realization of this dream sink in.