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His ability to play the fiddle has won him competitions across the South.

He's played at the Grand Ole Opry and now has an official Tennessee state song.

Hello, I'm Steve Beverly and coming up next, Tennessee Is Talking sits down with champion fiddler Wayne Jerrolds and we find out about his latest honor and more.

Let's get the conversation started.

[background conversations] That's so cool.

Then that's when I said that.

The problem with that idea is.

That was amazing.

Then I came up with a solution.

What was that about?

Here's what I think about it.

Now we're talking.

West Tennessee PBS presents Tennessee Is Talking.

Let the conversation begin.

Thanks for joining the discussion on Tennessee is Talking.

I'm Steve Beverly.

He grew up on a farm in Hardin County and as a small boy sold seeds and eggs to pay for his first fiddle, which he still has.

We welcome champion fiddler Wayne Jerrolds and state Senator Page Walley.

Welcome both of you to Tennessee is Talking.

It's so good to have you with us here.

We want to start with the senator in talking about this.

We mentioned that Wayne now has an official state song.

Now we have many state songs, but he is one of the rare breeds that has given us to that.

Tell us how this all came about to make this an official state song.

Steve, Wayne has been highly esteemed and well known across Tennessee and across our country for his dramatically wonderful music abilities, songwriting, fiddle playing.

He even has a hybrid instrument that he invented himself that he showed us in the legislature when he was visiting.

There it is.

Let's take a look at it ri.. Now, Wayne, not to interrupt where Senator Walley is talking about.

How old is this one?

-Oh, it's 15 year old, I guess.

-Okay, this is not a relic.

[laughs] I have several old ones, but this is one that I experimented with and I wanted mandolin on one side and a fiddle violin on the other.

I have never seen that before but I have now.

[laughs] -That's the first one.

In fact, I had a patent on it and didn't really need it because I'm not going to go into business, again I'm supposed to be retired.

I didn't want to start it.

He's a master.

Wayne and Freeda and the band came to the legislature and played a few numbers for us.

People were just obviously overwhelmed.

We had been having some thoughts about trying to propose one of the songs.

Tennessee, Tennessee, as a Tennessee state song.

As you mentioned, we do have other state songs, but we thought it would be very important to have one of our own who was so famous and so prominent to be among that pantheon of songwriters and singers.

I introduced the legislation and we had Kirk Haston do it on the House side.

He is our representative for Hardin County.

We didn't have a single dissenting vote.

Everybody was very much enthusiastic about it.

I took a little teasing because we have state songs here, state flower, state insect, state this, state that.

People got it and really enjoyed it.

I was able in particular to remind them that they've already heard the master at work there in our Senate chamber.

It was a great day.

We have a copy of the bill, in fact, that was used to vote on and the legislature and to show everybody just what it actually looks like whenever it's signed into law.

It's a marvelous honor for this.

Wayne, tell me what it felt like to find out that your song was going to be an official state song.

That was probably the highlight of my career, hoping to get it out there like that.

Of course, I wrote it a good while back, but I was hoping someday.

It would get the attention of the right one.

I've had songs recorded by a few people, but never did get much recognition from it.

Bobby Osborne, the fellow that put out Rocky Top, he recorded one of my songs, but didn't go very far.

This one is what I thought was special.

Especially when you think in talking about Tennessee, I tried to touch a little on the bright spots, highlights that I thought would capture the imagination of a lot of people, because Tennessee, it's got a lot to offer, not just one flat swamp land or one hillside.

It's got both.

We got it all.

You get on the east side of the river, you got the mountains and you come on the west side, you flatten out.

It's just really tempting.

Let's think about this.

You've been fiddling since you were just a boy.

What is it about the fiddle and bluegrass music that speaks to you?

Why do you think it speaks to the people to this day in Tennessee?

Yes, the bluegrass, call it bluegrass now, but it's really carrying on a tradition that's been around for hundreds of years.

Of course, Mr. Monroe-- You're talking about Bill Monroe, yes.

Bill Monroe, he called his band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, which that was all acoustic instruments send it to Grand Ole Opry and other country music, they did a lot of electric drums and all that, but he held it just to the acoustic sound like it was back in the mountains.

Then it got the name of bluegrass because his band was Blue Grass Band, and so that's when it started back in the '40s, but it's just bringing on the old mountain music was around for probably 200 years, but now they call it bluegrass, so it's not a lot of difference.

Page, when did you first hear Wayne?

How was this song actually brought to your attention?

I've been familiar with Wayne for years.

I'm a real avid bluegrass or mountain music fan myself.

The song itself, I was not as familiar with.

Now, his sister, Freeda, who's part of the band, had talked to me about it as well as the other songs.

Obviously, it had the right name to be a state song.

The combination of hearing the song and the title and the spirit behind it just seemed to lend itself to this.

This ought to be something that we memorialize here in Tennessee, into perpetuity.

Now, because of the legislation we passed, Tennessee, Tennessee will be listed as an official state song.

Every two years, we produce these, what we call blue books.

I'm sure it's electronically available, but they're hard copies of these literal blue books that are an almanac of all things State of Tennessee.

Every school gets them, every club gets them.

Almost everywhere they're just so dispersed.

Wayne and that song are going to be listed there for future generations to love and appreciate.

I think it's wonderful.

We've got other tremendous artists in there, too, that have made such contributions.

It just seemed like one of our own from West Tennessee ought to be there.

I was glad to be a small part of that.

This is really like you're on a Mount Rushmore with these limited number of people who have had their songs to be official state songs.

Wayne, I'm fascinated with songwriters and how their mind works to be able to put all this together.

What do you think about when you think about writing a song?

What comes to you, the words or the music first?

How do you do it?

The music part is, I guess, the easiest for me.

I know some many old mountain tunes.

You can take them and mix them up and come up with something new.

Getting the words that you really think would appeal is the hard part, I suppose.

I'd write.

Then I'd back off and tear it up, and rewrite and rewrite down through sometimes for months.

I just wonder, when you get to that moment that you know, this is it.

Yes.

You play it for the first time, you say, this is it.

How does that just all come together?

It's a great feeling when it does come together.

You feel like you've accomplished, what you've been struggling with for a good while wake up at night and write a little of it.

I guess when I was really writing, I'd take the pencil and paper with me because I'd wake up and I'd say, "I can't remember it."

Then if I jot it down, then it's there the next morning and that's made it easier.

We've mentioned earlier that you were a little boy when you got your first fiddle.

How long before you really felt like you became proficient at playing the fiddle?

I was 16 before I could get the fiddle.

When I was in high school, I wanted to play it in the band, and my mother wouldn't.

I'd go down, and they'd all play the ones that had an instrum.. but I couldn't get an instrument.

She said, maybe someday we can find you a good use, and pullin.. but that never did happen.

Then when I was about 16, she bought me a fiddle for $15, and I'd tried to sell garden seed to buy me one.

I'd walk up and down the creeks there and the roads, but I never did get enough of sales for it.

What was the most difficult thing about learning to play it and fingering the chords, et cetera, like that?

What was the toughest thing about actually learning how to master it?

Oh, Lord, no one's ever mastered it.

It's about time you get in one style, there's another style waiting for you.

I got pretty good on the country style, but then the Bill Monroe, the high lonesome sound, that's a different ball game.

First, starting out in the country, they'd play, just some jigs and two, three chords, which is just real premises.

Then when you get into the professional side of it, you find some real tasks there to try to master it, so the bluegrass was really hard to get to where.

I was good enough to play with Mr. Monroe for him to hear me and then.. That just took a long time, but I went from one instrument to another.

I used to play the tenor banjo in Memphis for about three years, shake his pizza parlor, and loved that.

I loved the old Lumber's ragtime.

We played for ragtime a long time, and I played the piano.

Then I took training to be a piano tuner.

Then after that, I built my store and had the dealership for several instruments.

I'd have to practice, then back off and get in the real world and do my, to bring up enough money to keep me from getting hungry.

[laughter] -You've literally done it all.

What we want to do right now is to sit back and give you an opportunity to listen and watch Wayne's official Tennessee state song, Tennessee, Tennessee.

[music] Senator Walley has stepped away, and now Freeda Ashe, who is part of the Wayne Jerrolds band, she also happens to be his cousin, and she's with us now.

Freeda we understand that you had a big part in helping to get Tennessee recognized by the legislature as a state song.

Tell us about that.

Wayne wrote Tennessee, Tennessee about 30 years ago, and so I really got to listen to it about 20 years ago, and I thought it was so beautiful, and it depict our state.

It just painted a beautiful picture of the State of Tennessee, and I really believed in it.

I thought that this is a song that people from California would make it welcome, and they would hear it, and they'd go, "Wow, this is where I need to go and be a part of it, just check it out on vacation," so that we got to talking about it, and he had a trusty old hound awaiting in it.

We changed that to an artist's view, so peaceful.

We changed a few little things in it, and I wanted a walking horse in it because I love walking horses, and horses, period.

We just got to talking about it, and that's how it all came about.

I'll tell you this information, 10 years ago the state of Tennessee wanted to come up with a new tourism song.

He had to cut it down.

We worked on it for the longest and cut it down to, what was.. three seconds or six seconds, something like that, because it was just going to be on TV.

When I went up to the tourism department and gave it to them, a few weeks later I got a letter back, and we got beat out by Dolly Parton.

Can you imagine?

These things happen.

They happen, don't they?

Wayne says, "Wow, to be second to Dolly Parton, that's pretty damn gone good," isn't it?

That shows also your persistence because you kept trying, and now we have made it to that level of this being such an outstanding song for the state.

Wayne, I wanted to ask you about this.

What was it like the first time you played at the Grand Ole Opry?

Just about too much for me.

[laughter] Oh, I was uptight.

Of course, that was always a dream for every fiddle player to play at the Grand Ole Opry.

When Mr. Monroe called me, and I went there, and that week he called me, it's on a Thursday night, and he said he'd been trying to get a hold of me all week but didn't have a cell phone back then.

He said, "You want to play with me tomorrow night?"

I said, "Yes, where are we going to play?"

I was hoping a schoolhouse or something.

He said, "The Grand Ole Opry."

I went on up and got into Union.

I went out there, and it was pretty hard on me.

I'm telling you, I thought I was going to mess up, but I didn't.

I stayed with him probably about six months.

Then I backed off and substituted for a long time because I really didn't want to.

I had a business going to Savannah, so I couldn't handle them both and do a good job.

I liked to be the substitute when one of his fiddle players couldn't make it.

When the call comes, there you go on that.

Freeda, this is interesting.

All you've talked about here is just so fascinating to me.

What was it like for you when you were finally invited to be part of the band?

Oh, I wasn't invited.

I just showed up.

[laughter] Her brother was in the band.

Yes, my brother was playing, and, of course, I was with my brother all the time.

Then I was playing the mandolin, the piano, whatever.

I just integrated into it.

It wasn't like his call from Bill Monroe.

[laughter] Let's talk about this.

This is so important because music is so ..

I know it has been, it was for me.

It was for my daughters.

Music is so essential to a child's development and education.

For both of you, what would you tell a young person who wants to get more involved in music, no matter what the instrument?

Also, to their parents about how to support them with that.

I'll start with you, Wayne, and then you pick it up for me.

Of course, I would really encourage them and feel their feelings out if they loved it or not, and not force it on them.

If they don't care about it and would rather be playing ball, I'd say let them play ball, because music's got to come from the heart, and if it's not there, it's really a bad feeling to try to find something when you're not interested in it.

Freeda, how about you?

Go back to Wayne's story, Ms. Robbie and them could not afford to buy.

Now, tell me whom Ms. Robbie is?

His mother and Mr. Paul, his father, they couldn't afford to buy him an instrument for the band.

I would encourage every school and anyone that wants to start a scholarship program, a child.

If a child comes to the parents or comes to a teacher and wants to be in a band, he should or she should, it should be available to them through a scholarship to buy the instrument, for something.

Also, Wayne never gave up.

He wanted to play an instrument and the guitar that you bought, how did you pay for it?

Was it selling duck eggs?

No, we cut wood.

Cut wood before school.

This is what the children need to realize.

Before he got on the bus to go to school, he cut wood for the neighborhood, people would pay for the firewood.

Then in the afternoons, he cut wood with his father.

He wanted to buy something, which was a guitar, and it was a mail order guitar.

He saved his money.

That's something that these children need to realize.

Also, if I might add, the steps to get this song to be a state song, I had no idea.

I have degrees.

I had no idea all the steps to get to making a bill.

You read about, and we have the song, a bill, a bill, a bill on the hill, our kids listen to that.

Then these are so many steps, and it goes into so many committees.

I followed it.

I got to follow it all the way through.

I wish our county and all over Tennessee would put this in the curriculum, that these kids would know how to get something passed, whether it's gun control, whatever it might be that they're interested in, to get it passed.

In addition to appreciating our st.. that kind of patriotism for it as well, for that.

Wayne, here's one for me that I really want to find out the answer to this.

When all is said and done, now that you've had this honor, to what degree is Tennessee, Tennessee the most favorite song that you've ever done, or is there another one that you like equally as well?

No, I'd say that's it.

It's one that I felt better about doing, and so I'm happy.

I'm happy about it.

We have about 30 seconds left, so what I wanted to tie the bow on all of this about is that when it comes down to fiddle music, mountain music, bluegrass music, why do you think that it has withstood the test of time and that it is still with us?

Some it tells a story and people can relate to it, especially the country people worked hard, and all life struggles and things, it brings us together, a song can.

I just feel like it's real life, there's nothing but the real, the bad and the good in it.

I'll tell you, you're a genuine legend, and I am honored that both of you have spent time with us today as well as Senator Page Walley, and thank you both for being with us.

We have run out of time for this edition of Tennessee is Talking.

We do want to thank all of our guests, Senator Page Walley, Wayne Jerrolds, and Freeda Ashe.

Remember, you can stream today's program whenever you want.

Just download the PBS app or watch it on our website, westnpbs.org.

Remember, you can watch Channel 11 live or stream any of our local programs for free on the PBS app.

I'm Steve Beverly, and I thank you for joining the conversation on West Tennessee PBS, Tennessee is Talking.

Tennessee is Talking is a presentation of West Tennessee PBS with the goal of bringing people together, sharing ideas, thoughts, and different perspectives, learning from each other, and sharing a civil and respectful discussion.

Tennessee is Talking, the show that brings West Tennessee together.

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