Photo credit: Nathan Lambrecht

Performing for a rapt audience at Nashville’s famous Bluebird Cafe, Wayne Jerrolds tucks his fiddle under his chin and, caressing the strings with his bow, coaxes a silky-smooth tune from the instrument before lowering it from his face to strum it like a guitar and sing with the rest of the band:

“It always makes me blue

And I always think of you

When I hear the Blue Savannah Waltz.”

After all these years, it’s still Jerrolds’ favorite.

Wayne Jerrolds, whose property overlooks the Tennessee River in Savannah, has performed with country music legends including Reba McEntire. Photo credit: Nathan Lambrecht

“That’s a song I wrote years ago, and Bill Monroe (the Father of Bluegrass) recorded it,” he says. “But the producer left it off because he had 13 songs to put on this CD. That particular album won a Grammy that year, and I felt so left out that my tune didn’t get on the album. But then later the Flat River Boys recorded it on the Bell Buckle label.”

After decades of performing with bluegrass legends like Monroe, the humble, down-to-earth Jerrolds, 84, now fiddles mostly for nursing home residents and festival-goers while still competing in – and winning – contests throughout the South.

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Photo courtesy of Wayne Jerrolds

“It Pierced My Soul”

Growing up, Jerrolds became fascinated by the bluegrass records his father listened to in their home in Savannah, Tennessee. “That music just pierced my soul,” Jerrolds says. “And I said, ‘Boy, that’s what I want to do.’ It was something that I felt was the greatest thing in the world.”

Determined to get a fiddle of his own, he tried selling garden seeds but couldn’t make enough money. Finally, when he was 16, his mom, a shoe factory worker, bought him one for $15.

“I still have it today,” he says. “It’s worth a lot more than that, of course.”

Learning to play the stringed instrument proved to be almost as tough as earning the money to buy one. Each day, his mother handed him a dollar to eat dinner at a local pool room, where he could pick up pointers from one of the fiddlers who hung out there. And after school, Jerrolds preferred to practice his music rather than play ball with his friends.

“A fiddle is about the hardest instrument there is,” he says. “I played lead guitar [in rock ’n’ roll bands] and I played piano in church for 50 years. But bluegrass was still in my heart.”

From the beginning, his goal was to play with Monroe.

Wayne Jerrolds, left, played with the Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe, right, at the Grand Ole Opry in December 1988. Photo courtesy of Wayne Jerrolds

A Grand Ole Time

Over the years, Jerrolds fine-tuned his fiddling. After coming in first place in competitions in Savannah and Memphis, he went on to ace state championships in Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, and became a popular go-to musician for various bluegrass bands.

“I don’t like to exaggerate it, but it’s probably pretty close to 100,” he says, referring to the number of contests he’s won.

In a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, he was hired to play fiddle for the square dance scene in “A Real American Hero,” the 1978 film starring Brian Dennehy as Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser of Walking Tall fame.

“A fiddle is about the hardest instrument there is. I played lead guitar in rock ’n’ roll bands and I played piano in church for 50 years. But bluegrass was still in my heart.”

– Wayne Jerrolds

In 1988, Jerrolds was playing in the band that opened for the Blue Grass Boys, Monroe’s group, when Monroe’s fiddler suddenly quit. Already impressed with Jerrolds’ skills, Monroe asked the young man, “Would you like to be a Blue Grass Boy?”

The audition went well, and Monroe promised to get in touch with his new protégé the following week. But Jerrolds, who was out of town tuning pianos – most background musicians didn’t earn much and had to supplement their incomes – missed the call. The night he returned to Savannah, Monroe called again. “Where you been, boy? You going to play with me tomorrow night?”

“Yes!” Jerrolds replied. “Where?”

Jerrolds nearly fell out of his chair when Monroe answered, “The Grand Ole Opry.”

“Boy, I wasn’t ready for that, but I made it,” Jerrolds recalls. “That was a dream come true.”

Photo credit: Nathan Lambrecht

Bluegrass and Beyond

But after six months on the road with the Blue Grass Boys, Jerrolds was exhausted. He’d been dabbling in real estate, buying large plots and dividing them into smaller parcels – something he still does today – and knew he could make an easier living that way.

“I had to make a choice whether I wanted to own these 55 acres here by the Tennessee River Bridge or be a musician,” he says. “I chose to stay at home and be a land developer.”

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Jerrolds no longer tours, but he still records three weekly television shows. Photo courtesy of Wayne Jerrolds

Hanging up his musical career, however, hasn’t stopped him from fiddling. In addition to entertaining local groups, he records three television shows each week that air in Jackson as well as a monthly gospel session for an Adamsville station. Gone are the late-night gigs in smoky bars, and he likes it that way. “I’m not going anywhere I have to stay up all night anymore like I used to,” he jokes.

But bluegrass and fiddling will always be in his blood, he says. “It filled an emptiness in my heart. Music is love in search of a word.”

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