Tonganoxie ? Joey Glenn’s living in two worlds.

By day, she’s a junior at Tonganoxie High School.

By night, she’s an up-and-coming country music singer.

Joey and her mother, Judy Glenn, returned in late January from Nashville, Tenn., where Joey recorded her first CD with Wild Oats Records, a Nashville recordlabel.

Her CDs are scheduled to be released in May.

“I’m going to be selling them at my shows, and they’re going to be sending them to all the radio places — hopefully, I’ll be on the radio,” Joey said, a quiet giggle punctuating the end of her sentence.

Although this puts her one step closer to reaching a goal she set as a child — to become a professional singer — anyone who knows Joey likely realizes she’s still a down-to-earth teenage girl.

On a recent winter evening, as a fire crackled in the fireplace, Joey sat on the floor of her family room, nestled between her parents, and sang. Her mother, Judy, and her father, Jim, accompanied her on their guitars.

Joey looks to her parents not just for parental guidance, but also for singing advice.

This is not surprising, considering that other than taking music classes at school, the Tonganoxie teen has never had a voice lesson.

She is a self-taught, or rather, a home-taught singer.

Joey Glenn, who says her professional name will be just Joey, sings at home with her parents, Judy and Jim Glenn. Joey, a junior at Tonganoxie High School, recently signed a contract with Wild Oats Records, a Nashville, Tenn., record company. She returned in January from Nashville, where she recorded tracks for CDs to be released in May.

“She was raised around music,” Judy said. “She started singing before she could talk.”

And, Judy noted, her youngest daughter proved her musical interest in another way: She learned to whistle before she could talk.

Double offers

During a November trip to Nashville, Joey landed offers from two record companies. After negotiating a contract with Wild Oats Records, Joey and her mother flew to Nashville on Jan. 19 to record a CD.

“On Thursday and Friday, I went in and did some scratch vocals,” Joey said. “They’re vocals that they don’t keep. It’s a thing so the band people can know where they are in a song.”

The next day, she went to work again.

“On Saturday, I laid down two of my songs,” Joey said. “Sunday I was off, and on Monday I went in and did my other two vocals.”

Then the next two days, Joey got to watch the process of mixing the vocals of herself, the backup singers and the instrumentals.

But the recording wasn’t the only thrill of her week in Nashville.

Joey sang Saturday night at the Nashville Palace.

“I sang two songs, then I got an encore and there were people chanting my name, wanting me to go back up and sing,” Joey said.

Tonganoxie High School junior Joey Glenn performs a set of songs in late January at the Nashville Palace in Tennessee. Glenn said an Alabama journalist heard her performance that night and said he planned to do a story on her in an Alabama magazine.

From that appearance, Joey caught the attention of an Alabama writer who took pictures of her and said she planned to publish a story about her in an Alabama publication.

Joey also caught the attention of the main singer performing that night at the Nashville Palace.

“He came over and he gave me one of his demo CDs that had songs that he had written and recorded, and he wanted me to sing them,” Joey said.

As if that weren’t enough, The Osborne Brothers, members of a bluegrass band that had just finished singing at the Grand Ole Opry, made a visit to the Nashville Palace.

“I was performing, and two of the members (of the Osborne Brothers) came over to me when I was done, they said wow, you have got a voice. You are going to go far,” Joey said. “It was really cool.”

Homegrown

Joey’s music is homegrown, as evidenced during a recent practice session at her house.

In the family room of her home, which is about 10 miles northeast of Tonganoxie, there are several guitars, a mandolin, microphones and amplifiers. Beside a bookcase is a small microphone that Judy, who’s always loved to sing, used as a child.

After singing half a dozen songs with her parents, Joey curls up in a corner of the couch, practicing the words to “High Performance Woman,” one of the songs she recorded in Nashville. As the music rings from the stereo, Joey sings along, easily overpowering the original singer’s voice on the recording.

Her father kneels behind the couch, listening to every note and sometimes coaching.

“Crank it up,” Jim says, as the music grows more intense.

JOEY GLENN LEARNED TO SING at home with her parents accompanying her on guitar. Her father, Jim, also plays the mandolin, and her mother, Judy, plays other musical instruments, including the saxophone and piano.

And that’s just what Joey does. Her voice grows, filling the room, in fact, filling the house with music.

But during an instrumental solo, Joey’s actions are less like that of a would-be-famous singer, and more like that of an ordinary teenager.

Sitting cross-legged in the corner of the couch, she fiddles with her cell phone, checking to see what friends have called, and tugs at a strand of her long blond hair.

By day or by night

Major Bill Welch, who is an operations research analyst at Fort Leavenworth, said two of his activities — working for the U.S. Army and playing acoustic guitar — are “as different as night and day.”

Welch and Joey became acquainted several years ago when they were competing against each other in the Colgate Country Showdown.

“My interest was sparked,” Welch said. “When I heard her sing, she was awesome. I told her if she was ever interested in taking her show live and wanted a guitar player to please give me a call because I wanted to play for her — and she took me up on it.”

With his boss’ blessing, Welch took a week off work to play guitar on Joey’s new CD.

But, Welch, who has five years before retirement, isn’t about to quit his day job.

“I’m married and the father of three,” Welch said. “I’ve got to provide for them. But when Judy (Joey’s mother) does the bookings, she is very sensitive to that. She tries to get it to where I don’t have to take time off from work.”

From the beginning, Welch has been impressed with Joey.

Tonganoxie teen joey glenn performs a set of songs at the Nashville Palace in Tennessee.

There’s her talent.

“I truly believe that Joey has what it takes to make it in this industry,” Welch said. “I have seen her perform for the last 18 months, and her comfort level on the stage is tenfold what it was when I saw her 18 months ago.”

There’s her work ethic.

While recording her CD, Joey had to sing one song over and over — for two hours.

“She never batted an eye,” Welch said. “If you sing one song for two hours, the normal person is going to get real frustrated with it. I never saw that, and I never heard it in her voice.”

There’s her personality.

“She’s very positive,” Welch said. “She’s very down-to-earth.”

For example, Welch was impressed at the Nashville Palace when two young ladies on the front row were screaming for Joey.

“She immediately goes down to the front row, meets with those girls, talks to them, gets to know them and makes a friend,” Welch said.

There’s her loyalty.

“Joey had told me when we started playing together that if something ever came out of her singing — a Nashville contract — that she would want me to go with her,” Welch said. “She’s loyal like that, and she wanted to drag me along, and I was more than happy to go.”

And, there’s her family.

“She’s very focused, and she’s got a lot of support from her mom and dad,” Welch said.

When he retires, Welch, who also is a songwriter, said he’d like to move to Nashville and work as a studio musician.

“But I’m also smart enough to realize that that’s a difficult situation to get into, but Joey has given me a toe in the door,” Welch said. “Well, who knows — I may be driving her bus instead of playing guitar for her at that point.”

Starting early

This summer, a year before she’s scheduled to graduate from high school, Joey will begin selling her CDs in a venture that likely will be financially rewarding.

“I’ll earn 50 percent of everything that I sell, and I’ll get a royalty check every six months,” Joey said.

This step, Joey said, also will put her closer to another dream: to sing on stage at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in nearby Kansas City, Kan.

But for now, she’s focusing on the recording — and still trying to convince herself it’s all really happening.

“I’m so excited,” Joey said, her deep dimples appearing as she smiled. “I’m still kind of like I haven’t actually realized it all yet, this all happened so fast. I got two offers in one day.”

And, Joey added, quietly, almost as if still trying to convince herself she was that much closer to her dream: “I am now a national recording artist.”

Lisa Scheller is news editor at The (Tonganoxie) Mirror. She can be reached at (785) 845-2222.