Music: Raising Her Voice
Lelia was eight when she was offered her first record contract. She wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything. She told her mother she had wanted it all her life.
Mary had seen the way audiences reacted to Lelia when she sang, in talent contests and kiddie beauty pageants, and the way Lelia thrived on that reaction. But Mary said no. Mary thought Lelia was too young. Mary held Lelia back as long as she could — as long as she was able. Once Lelia started writing songs, though, and Mary heard how good, how really good they were, something just broke. “Some people say she’s still too young,” Mary acknowledges. “But there’s no way I can stop her now. There’s something beyond me at work here.”
Lelia says she found the Voice by mimicking Whitney Houston and Christina Aguilera (“Divas!”), Van Morrison and Marvin Gaye. Mary prefers to listen to Elton John and Eminem. Does Mary think Eminem had a Plan?
“I believe he has a lot of pain. I think pain can be a great motivator,” Mary says.
Lelia’s life in Chester Springs isn’t exactly Eight Mile. She and Mary moved there six years ago, when Mary married the man who would father Quinton. They’re divorced now, but friendly. Lelia’s dad, from back in Louisiana, has only seen her a few times, when she was very young. He made, Mary says, “a decision not to maintain contact.” Lelia doesn’t talk much about her dad, because when people ask about him and she tells the story, they feel sorry for her, and she doesn’t like that.
If Lelia’s not in anguish — and she doesn’t seem to be, sitting at the dining room table, spooning up her mom’s tasty chili, in blue jeans and a pink sweater and just a swipe of pink eye shadow — where does the raw emotion in her songs come from? She writes about longing and loss and secrets and, wryly, second-guessing, with so rich a sensibility that a lot of people don’t believe she’s really 15. (“We get that all the time,” Mary sighs.) But up close, Lelia is clearly, indubitably, 15 — alternately giggly and enthused and solemn and silly and, occasionally, pompous in the way only the very young can be.
