Teen could be country's next singing sensation
This article appeared in the Tampa Tribune on July 27, 2003. The photo was taken from Jenna's website.
By CARL ORTH
NEW PORT RICHEY - When Jenna Thomas was 6, she would tell her dad, Mike, that he could be the drummer in her band when she became a famous singer.
Everybody got a big laugh out of that, but they're not laughing anymore.
The 17-year-old just signed a one-year development contract with Nashville producer Robert Metzgar, who has worked with such top country talents as Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks.
Thomas will travel in September with her parents, Mike and Mary Lou, to Nashville to record 10 songs that could be released on a major label next year. She then might begin touring, with her dad on the drums in the road band.
``I've been working for this all my life,'' Thomas said. ``I wasn't expecting it this fast.''
She will have to juggle about three months of studio time with classes at Gulf High School during her senior year.
Fan clubs for the budding star already are popping up. Details are on her Web site www.jennathomas.com
A cousin in Tarpon Springs is creating a ``street team'' site on Yahoo. For local bookings call (727) 845-7418.
Jenna's success doesn't surprise Shawn Bray, owner and operator of Clearwater-based SBray Productions.
``She was definitely tops on my list,'' he said of people who auditioned for the first Chasco Fiesta Talent Search in March. ``My jaw literally hit the floor'' when she sang.
Despite her diminutive frame of 5-foot-3 and 97 or so pounds, she belts out songs in a style that reminds Bray of country legend Patsy Cline.
Thomas can ride a wave in Nashville that's trying to return country music to its roots, rather than the pop/rock flavoring of more recent years.
Thomas likes to listen to blues singer Etta James and to Jimmy Buffett. She disapproves of using sex appeal to sell CDs, preferring instead to let her music speak for itself.
The musician bug bit Thomas at 2, when she first began standing behind a microphone, mimicking her dad, a professional drummer.
In second grade, she got help from her older sister, Dana, to join a Mittye P. Locke Elementary School chorus usually reserved for fourth- and fifth-graders. Director Henry Fletcher soon made Thomas a soloist.
She began singing the national anthem at home games for Police Athletic League football in New Port Richey and the PAL ``super bowl'' at East Lake High School.
By eighth grade, she was singing the national anthem for Veterans Day ceremonies at the American Legion in Hudson, and has been invited back each year to perform.
In 2001, she sang at a Tampa Bay Devil Rays game.
She also performed at the first anniversary observance in New Port Richey of the Sept. 11 attacks. She was the featured vocalist during the Vietnam Wall Experience at North Meadowlawn Funeral Home and cemetery in New Port Richey.
One of her songs from that appearance, ``A Soldier's Story,'' was distributed locally. The stirring lyrics came from a poem written by her Uncle Tom, as he lay wounded in a foxhole in Vietnam, convinced he would not make it home.
Thomas now is busy writing and recording material with her father. If she reaps fame and fortune, she has promised to buy a house for her parents and a car for her sister.
Jenna said she intends to stay grounded by remaining in New Port Richey. But she also plans to follow the advice of a well-known cousin, journalist Helen Thomas, to ``go after your dream.''
