Skye's the limit

[Times photos: Janel Schroeder-Norton] With the help of Orlando vocal coach Franky Correa, right, Skye Parrish, 13, warms up her voice for a demo of the song Rain Go Away.

By LANE DeGREGORY
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 31, 2003

She sings from a producer's clothes closet, studies The Magic of Thinking Big and ponders her image. It's all part of a star's search for success, at age 13.

WESLEY CHAPEL -- Skye Parrish skips down the stairs singing a Whitney Houston song. Sounding like Mahalia Jackson. Looking like Britney Spears.

Same straight, highlighted hair; same smiling brown eyes; same dimples framing full, pouty lips. She's wearing platform sandals, tight jeans, a red baseball shirt. A thick silver cross hangs around her neck. Silver hoops swing from both ears. She has even tucked her hair into a railroad cap, a la Britney.

But Skye doesn't want to be Britney.

"We're not going to knock Britney," Skye's mom says. "But Britney . . . well . . ."

Skye spins into the hallway, still singing. She's 13. Barely 5 feet tall. Not yet 100 pounds.

Her voice is old and huge. Honey sweet and oak solid. Like she has seen things.

And this is only her at-home voice. She's saving her big-stage, behind-the-microphone voice for this afternoon. For the recording session.

She dances into the living room, picking up books and CDs. "I believe in you and me . . ."

Skye's brother Chase doesn't look up. He's watching a Christian homeschooling video about Sir Isaac Newton.

Skye's mom, Susan, takes out her cell phone. "I talked to the woman at Star Search, and she said our video was perfect," she tells Skye's vocal coach. "She promised she'd pass it on to the producer. So we should hear from them any time."

Skye stops singing so she can hear her mom. "A new producer?" her mom asks, nodding at Skye. "Today? Of course we'll do it today." She clicks off the phone. "This will be our fourth producer," she says. Then she stops. She turns to Skye. "Your fourth producer."

"Come on. Grab your stuff," her mom says. "We've got a long drive ahead of us."

Propped against a wall in the dance studio, Susan Parrish, 44, Skye’s mother, is reflected in a mirror as she observes her daughter waiting for her dance class to start.

So real

Skye Parrish lives in a two-story Victorian house on an unpaved road north of Tampa with her mom, her dad, one of her big brothers and four little dogs. Her older brother, Blake, goes to the University of South Florida in Tampa.

In Skye's sunny upstairs bedroom, tap shoes click against her full-length mirror. A three-tiered makeup kit takes up a table. Stickers on the crowded closet say "Cutie Pie" and "Diva."

Skye listens to Brandy and the Backstreet Boys, Barbra Streisand and Barbara Cook. Two books are on her nightstand: a hardback Bible and a paperback, The Magic of Thinking Big.

Skye knows she'll be big.

In January, she got her first break. She got to open for her favorite band, O-Town. She got to sing in front of 20,000 people in Orlando. She hung her backstage pass around her trophy. It towers over her karaoke machine.

Under her bed, Skye stacks Teen People and Pop Star magazines. She studies where Christina Aguilera went wrong. And why everyone thinks Avril Lavigne is so right.

"She's so REAL," Skye says. "You know?"

Skye is working to perfect her image. Figuring out how to be herself. Her mom helps, picking out funky pants that don't show off her flat stomach, finding cool shoes with heels low enough to hip-hop in.

"Mom has her input," Skye says. "But I always agree with her anyway. We both want the same thing."

Whose idea was this anyway?

The drive

The passenger seat is piled high with books and coolers. A TV/VCR stuffed between the front seats, facing back. Notebooks and dance sneakers, a video camera and videos, brushes and business cards and hair ties.

Mom's minivan is broken. So she had to squeeze everything into Dad's Camaro.

Dad took the day off from his job at MetLife insurance so Skye wouldn't miss her lessons.

"Ready?" her mom asks, opening the door. Skye and Chase fold into the back seat.

Every Tuesday, they drive to Orlando so Skye can work with private coaches. Vocal trainers, dance instructors and producers. During the two-hour round-trip, Skye and Chase study in the back seat or watch homeschooling tapes.

Their mom started homeschooling them when they were little, when they got sick.

She's still teaching them, though they've been better for years.

"It gives Skye more time for her singing," her mom says.

The bio sheet Skye's mom gives out says that she is homeschooled "so she can have the time to develop her striking dance style mixed with a soulful, Mariah Carey-inspired voice."

While her mom steers onto the interstate, Skye spreads her homework across her lap. She's supposed to be reading History of the World in Christian Perspective.

But her new song keeps playing in her head.

Prayers and press packets

Skye started singing for audiences from a grocery cart, performing while her mom pushed her through Publix.

When she was 5, she landed a part in the Christmas program at Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa. She got to sing in front of 2,000 people. That night, she told her mom that she was going to be a famous singer.

Her parents prayed about it and promised to encourage her.

But soon they had more important things to ask God for.

On a walk through the woods in Wisconsin, Skye, her brothers and her mom were bitten by ticks. They suffered for three years before doctors found what was wrong: Lyme disease. Treatments took another two years.

They kept praying that Susan's chest pains would stop. They kept praying that Chase would stop having strokes. They kept praying that Skye would walk again.

"One day, when she was 10, she just crumbled in the kitchen. She couldn't feel her legs," Susan says. "But even through all that, for more than a week while she couldn't stand up, she never stopped singing. Nurses kept coming into the hospital room to see who was singing."

Skye got better. So did her mom and brothers. They haven't had symptoms in four years.

Skye started singing in church again. And she started testifying: God cured her. God helped her dance again. God gave her this voice.

Her mom got her gigs.

"At first, it was all word-of-mouth. She'd perform at one church, and someone from another church would hear about her and call," Susan says. "Then everything started taking off."

Susan put together a press packet. Skye's uncle took publicity photos. A friend from church built a Web site.

By the time Skye was 12, she was earning $300 an appearance. Most of her earnings go toward voice and dance lessons, and recording CDs. She is being booked from Ocala to Orlando.

The resume her mom typed is three pages long: church solos and speeches; talent shows and vocal competitions. She sings for children in inner-city housing projects, for Tampa Mayor Dick Greco, for the Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club. At the Orlando fair, at the Plant City Strawberry Festival, at the Crescent City Catfish Fest. Wherever she is called.

As long as Mom says it's okay.

More meaning

Mom Susan, left, and daughter, Skye, sing a duet in the modified closet in Alan Kay’s Orlando home that does double duty as a recording studio.

They pull into the parking lot of an Orlando apartment complex just before 1 p.m. Skye's mom squints at the numbers, to make sure. Normally, she drives to the house where Skye's vocal coach lives.

Today, the coach is meeting them at a new recording studio. With the new producer.

"I guess it's up here," Susan says, climbing concrete stairs. Skye follows, carrying her CDs. Chase comes behind, bringing his backpack.

The studio is the sun room of a one-bedroom apartment. The producer, Alan Kay, is 23. He works overnights at a Publix, stocking shelves. During the days, he records up-and-coming artists. He arranged a digital sound system, computerized keyboard and oversized monitor around the windows. He turned his walk-in closet into a sound booth. Egg crate insulation hangs above his sweatshirts. A wide, round microphone stands ready by his shoe rack.

"So this is Skye," the vocal coach says. "And this is her mother and brother."

Chase takes his book bag to the kitchen table and spreads out his algebra assignments.

Susan settles in on the couch with her camera.

The coach is Franky Correa. He and Skye's other vocal instructor, Tommy Hopkins, taught Skye last summer at the Hard Rock Academy in Orlando. They worked with her before the O-Town concert. Her mom hired them to help record this demo. Franky wrote the song Skye is going to record today.

"Actually, Skye and I collaborated on the lyrics," Susan says. "I wrote the stuff with meaning."

Franky swivels on his stool by the keyboard and raises his eyebrows.

"Your words were good, Franky. They were so good," Susan says, smiling sweetly. "They would have been good for Shania Twain or something. But Skye's music has to have more meaning. We want her to be inspirational. So I just reworked the words some."

Franky nods and puts on his headphones.

"Actually, Skye reworked the words," Susan says as the soundtrack starts to roll. "She writes most of her own songs. We need to be comfortable that what she's singing is her."

The song is called Rain Go Away. It's about looking back on childhood, Franky says.

"It's about being a child," Skye's mom corrects him.

"It is hard to be a kid today/Inside not running free/I need to hope for a brighter day/Raindrops are just in my way." The music is slow and dynamic, with throaty low notes and difficult highs. Skye sings it hesitantly at first, then stronger once she gets the feel. "Tomorrow will be much brighter/This load will be much lighter . . ."

"At least it's deeper now," Susan says, smiling. Franky doesn't seem to hear through his headphones.

Skye keeps singing. "When the sun shines/The world will be mine."

Other voices

Her vocal coach says that she needs to practice harmonies. But she's got it. She's going places.

The director of the Hard Rock Academy says that Skye is unique and "absolutely marketable."

"She's still young. She's got some growing to do," David Haverkamp says from his Orlando office. "But she's got this incredible talent coupled with this drive, this understanding of what it's going to take for her to be successful. She works extremely hard. She never questions or complains.

"By the time she reaches her teens, she'll be a well-known name."

Skye's best friend, Mandy, says that Skye is usually sort of shy. But she's prone to performance. Sometimes at church parties and sleep-overs Skye breaks into song or does one of her dance routines. "But the other kids don't think that's showing off or anything. Skye's not conceited," says Mandy Garner, 14. "She's just a normal, ordinary girl who likes to go to the mall and the movies and have fun like anyone else.

"The only thing different about Skye is when she's onstage. She wears fake eyelashes. She looks so old. Other than that, she's still herself. We all know she's going to be on TV some day."

Franky Correa, left, one of Skye’s vocal coaches, explains to her what he’s looking for in her voice during the recording session, while Tommy Hopkins, far right, the singer’s other vocal coach, and producer Alan Kay, center, watch. Skye’s brother, Chase, foreground, comes along for the wait.

Mirror image

By 6 p.m., after four hours of recording and rerecording, Skye's song is finished. The backing vocals, at least. She'll have to come back next week to do the leads.

The producer burns Skye a CD. Skye's mom writes checks to him and the vocal coaches. Chase gathers his books and carries the cooler to the car.

They grab a quick dinner at Boston Market. Then they head across town to a dance lesson. On Tuesdays, they don't get home until after midnight.

"I never get tired," Skye insists. "It's my favorite day."

The rest of the week, Skye's schedule runs from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m.: An hour of dance. An hour and a half of singing. And hour of choreography, studying and practicing. An hour of songwriting (more like poetry writing; Skye doesn't read or write music). Plus geometry and English, history and religion.

"And almost every day she jogs a mile around our neighborhood, singing," her mom says. "That's her PE time. It helps her learn to phrase things properly while she's breathing hard."

Susan won't let her daughter date until she's 16. "But I don't want to, anyway," Skye says. "And besides, I don't have time."

Sure, Susan concedes, her daughter might be missing out on some things. "Like negative peer pressure, exposure to drugs and alcohol, sex and violence," she says. "Skye is much more focused this way. Much more able to work toward what she wants."

What does Skye really want? Does she know what she's missing?

"I mean, I've never really been in public school. So I guess I'm not sure," Skye says. "Maybe football games. Maybe cheerleading." She stops and looks at her mom.

"But I bet that's not as thrilling as getting up on a stage in front of 1,000 people."

Her mom says that Skye has been offered a record deal. "But we're trying to hold off until she's a little older, until her signing bonus would be bigger," she says. "This business is just such a lot of stress for such a little girl. I'm her manager still, and I'm not ready to turn her over to the wolves."

So for now, Skye is averaging two or three appearances a week, at churches, at festivals and revivals. She's making straight A's on her homeschool assignments. Her autographed photos are selling for $5 each.

"We're going to get these new CDs out to sell soon, too," her mom says.

When she was a teenager, Susan sang, too. A framed black and white photo in their dining room shows her as a high school senior on a stage in front of a microphone, strumming a guitar. Her long, light blond hair hangs past her shoulders, just like Skye's.

Susan wears her hair short now. She never picks up her guitar. Between homeschooling her kids, running Skye to voice and dance lessons, and meeting producers, she never has time.

She is sitting cross-legged on the floor in the back of the dance studio watching Skye gyrate to Janet Jackson grooves, still waiting for Star Search to call.

"I used to do runway modeling. Burdines and Maas Brothers. I did commercials for three different agencies, back before the kids were born," she says.

Susan is 44 now. She shifts on the floor and uncrosses her legs.

The front wall of this dance studio is a mirror. Even from her corner of the room, Skye's mom is reflected. While she watches her daughter whirl toward her dream, she sees herself sitting on the floor, watching.

"That was a long time ago," she says.

For more

To hear Skye's music or see her video, go to skye.airtampa.net/navtest.php.

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