[Woman VO] Nestled in the heart of Appalachia, the University of Virginia's College at Wise is where students experience unique regional culture and the great outdoors.

UVA Wise, empowering students to learn and lead in their communities and the world.

♪♪ [Josh VO] If you watched our recent episode on Wythe County, Virginia, then you know I've been turning the camera inward lately.

Trying to see what's been sitting right under my nose.

I talked about how easy it is to overlook the places we live, how quick we are to trade what's familiar for what feels exotic.

To fly halfway across the country chasing someone else's postcard version of life, while ignoring the stories waiting in our own backyard.

That episode taught me something, not just about Wythe County, but about the way I see home.

Because every time I think I've got a place figured out, something or someone shows me something new.

While filming there, I met people whose work and spirit pointed me somewhere else, just down the road, but a world away, Grayson County, Virginia.

Here, the mountains don't just rise, they tower.

Mt.

Rogers brushes the sky.

Wild ponies roam the highlands like something out of another century.

And one of the oldest rivers on Earth, the New River, cuts a path through these ridges with the patience of time itself.

It's a landscape that stops you in your tracks.

Quiet, raw and self-assured.

But the beauty here isn't only in the land, it's in the hands and hearts of the people.

This small county on the map has brought forth unlikely giants.

Grayson is the home of one of the most iconic, sought-after instrument makers in the world.

A man whose lifelong craft began as a child decades ago building guitars out of cardboard boxes and fishing line.

It's where a small county high school has produced more than 40 NBA alumni.

Grayson beats to its own rhythm.

In this episode I'm exploring what makes this place tick, the people who hold on to the old ways while shaping what's next, the culture that refuses to fade and the idea that maybe home isn't just one place, but rather a constellation of people and experiences, all connected by the stories we take the time to see.

They say the place you're from shapes you.

Maybe it defines you.

I've always thought you can't really understand yourself until you understand where you come from.

I'm Josh with PBS Appalachia.

In this series, I'm going from town to town, exploring the places people still call home, their hometowns.

From Appalachia to the rest of the country, I've found we share more than we think.

But it's the details, the food, the voices, the pride and traditions that make us different.

This isn't a story told from New York or LA.

It comes with roots embedded in Southwest Virginia, an often overlooked, misunderstood corner of the map.

That perspective matters, because the character of America doesn't just live in its big cities.

It's the small towns, the back roads, the kitchens, and the bars where people gather.

That's the lens I bring to this journey, because the character of America isn't written in headlines.

It's lived in neighborhoods, on porches, at kitchen tables.

And this season, we're pushing past borders into communities far from here, into new towns, new kitchens, new homes.

Searching for what home means here and everywhere.

In every small town, there's a place where the real stories gather.

Where the scissors never stop moving and the music really never leaves.

Jim Lloyd has played his way around the world, carrying Southwest Virginia with him every step.

You might remember Jim from our time in Wythe County.

It's fitting he shows up again here in Grayson, because in rural Virginia, the stories don't stay put.

They move across ridge lines and into neighboring towns, carried by people like Jim, connecting people and places the way only time and tradition can.

Grayson County is just like right over there, isn't it?

-That way.

-That way.

-[laughs] -I'm a little disoriented.

-Yeah, that's why we're really close.

I went to high school in Russell County in Levin.

-Okay.

-And my dad was a miner.

My grandfather was a miner.

My great grandfather was a miner.

I was told as a kid-- my grandfather said, "You are not going into mines."

And my dad said that too.

So I started college, and realized college just wasn't for me.

So I ended up... I had a great uncle that was a musician and a barber.

And he said, "Well, you could probably do that."

So I ended up in barber school and came out of school.

And make a long story short, this town -- the barber was a World War II generation and he was going out of business and they needed a barber.

So I was here.

- Okay.

[Jim] So it's been 40 years now.

At the time, I needed a job.

[Josh] Needed a job.

[Jim] That's all in my mind... that I didn't even take into consideration anything about failure or anything.

I just said, "Okay, this is it.

I'm going to give it everything I got."

So I ended up here.

And the people here were very nice.

In a sense, here I was 20 years old.

But in a sense, they raised me.

There was a lot of wonderful people.

The guys that were coming in the barbershop at that time, the older ones were 80 and 90 years old.

So they'd be ancient now.

But they were just really nice grounded people.

They had passions about them.

I talked to steam engineers and World War II pilots and all these guys that had seen great moments in history.

So it was a wonderful opportunity for me.

[Josh] What were those early settlers coming here for?

Why were they here?

[Paulie] Well, it's like you're looking in the bigger cities-- Philadelphia and places like that.

They were getting overcrowded.

And they were tired of the bureaucracy that was going on there.

And so these pioneers were coming to settle into a place that you know, they can kind of own their land and do the things that they want to do.

-You had the two roads, the Wagon Road coming out of Philadelphia and then off of that, the Wilderness Road, which went out more towards where Kentucky is now.

And the Wagon Road actually passed near here.

And I think that helped to facilitate some of it.

I always remember there was a point when I was a kid, and one of the lines that always stuck with me was "Elbow room pride, Daniel Boone."

And that's, I think the gist of what people were doing is they wanted that freedom to spread out and raise their families and grow crops.

And for some of them, to be in just a generation or two from Europe you just didn't have that anymore.

-Oh, yeah, very cramped living.

-All the land was owned a lot of times by the crown.

And here, they could have their own land, make their own decisions.

-Grayson County became a county in 1793.

[Josh] Okay.

-And that's why it was part of Wythe County at the time when it become a county.

[Josh] And they just kept breaking it off.

-Well now, originally it was part of Montgomery, part of Fincastle.

-Fincastle, yeah.

-Our Fincastle, Montgomery.

And then as it started breaking away, Wythe County we was parted with from 1790 to 1793.

-Right around World War II, Grayson County had about 25,000-26,000 people.

[Josh] Okay.

-And then after the war, and all the industries started going away it just started dropping and dropping.

I think at its lowest, it's probably around 15,000.

[Paulie] 15,000.

-And we're up close to 19 again.

We are growing again, but it's one of those.

And it's typical for a lot of the rural counties where they had this peak and the lumber drove that a lot.

There were some mills, textile things.

And then it just dropped, bottom dropped out.

And it's starting to climb up again.

-What's drawing people back to Grayson?

[Paulie] You have a community here.

Once people move here, they'll come to visit.

A lot of times people come to visit and they'll go to some of the festivals or things that's going on.

And they get to talking to people and they're like, "Wow, I really like that.

"I really like that community.

"I really like that closeness that you feel when you're there."

I love that it's like you're coming home.

-You know, Fries is a music town.

If Bristol is the birthplace of country music, then Fries is where it was conceived.

Fries, the mill town culture really... encouraged the growth and exchange of music.

People came in from all over the southeast and they brought their music with them.

And they had time during breaks.

They had a little extra money maybe the farmhands wouldn't have to spend on instruments.

So they really spent that time exchanging ideas about music.

And it really grew up here.

A fiddler in Georgia named Fiddlin' John Carson had a record that went viral, as we would say these days.

It was a hit.

They called some other people back from this area, John Rector, Pop Stoneman.

And those folks went up to New York and recorded some music.

That music became popular.

So several years later, they did the Bristol sessions in Bristol.

And that's when the Carter family was discovered and some other musicians.

And so Fries was the spark that brought that music into popularity in the country.

-That's interesting.

I didn't know that.

And so with that history, what is it like today?

What's the-- is there a music culture still here, music scene?

What's that like?

What does it look like?

-Oh.

It's very vibrant.

-There's a song or a tune for everything, you know?

And that's one thing I've always loved about music.

Because if you're feeling down, you can pick up your fiddle and you know, play a little tune.

It might make you feel better.

Sometimes you just want to play a mournful tune, [chuckles] you know?

And that might make you feel good.

But it's always been a big help to me.

And I grew up just about 10 miles from here over in the little town of Fries, Virginia.

And we're here at the Gaylax Fiddler's Convention, the world's biggest and oldest convention.

I've been coming here all my life.

Well, I say all my life, my mom wouldn't allow me to come until I got to be about-- I think I was probably 12 or 13.

And she did allow me to come with my grandpa for about two hours on Saturday evening [laughs].

It used to be different here.

It was back in the day, it was a little bit rougher than it is now.

But it's more family-oriented now.

[Josh] So rougher, as in?

-Well, there was a lot more drinking and other kind of stuff going on.

[laughs] A good friend of ours, Helen White, started a program, an after-school program here, called the JAM Program.

Which is Junior Appalachian Musicians.

And that's brought a lot of interest to the kids.

[Jim] I've been with Junior Appalachian Musicians for about nine years now.

And we've got 68 chapters in seven states.

So we teach around 2,500 kids a year.

And I'm program director for this.

I've traveled through all of Appalachian, up and down.

Music was something that was in me.

Both my grandfathers were medicine show performers in the '30s.

My grandfather Lloyd did it up into the '50s.

But then I had a great uncle that played with Bill Monroe in the late '50s.

The music was always there.

And something I always kind of did on the side.

I never really tried to do it for a living.

But it seemed like everything good that's ever happened to me, I backed into.

I've been nominated for a National Heritage Award like 15 times.

I've toured the UK.

I've toured France.

I've been to Hawaii.

I've been all of them down the East Coast.

I do a lot of... museum displays.

Working for JAM, we teach kids.

I've been a teacher since I was 19 on traditional Appalachian music.

I always collected stories and stuff.

I recently talked to an orchestra leader of all places from Constantinople.

It was Istanbul, one of those two.

But he told me it's the same across the board.

And I found it to be true since I talked to him.

Every musician, no one sees my worth.

I don't know why I do this.

[laughs] They're all like that.

From classical to bluegrass.

-Creatives in general, I think, would feel this way.

-A bit tormented.

-Right, yeah.

[Eddie] I did receive a National Heritage Fellowship back in 2018.

That was a surprise for me.

[chuckles] I had actually been nominated for nine years when I got it.

So that's why I thought I never was going to get it.

[laughter] But anyways it's not a great big deal really.

It's just they recognize folk artists.

And it's not just for music, either.

It's for all kinds of folk art.

I teach at Grayson County High School.

And I teach a string band class up there, which is a lot of fun.

Because I get to teach traditional music the way I learned it.

Not off of a piece of paper, but one on one.

And I like it.

I think it works better that way.

Some things you can't write down, you know.

[Josh] There's old time, right?

[Eddie] Yes.

[Josh] And what do you play?

[Eddie] I play old time as opposed to bluegrass.

I'm not opposed to bluegrass.

[laughter] And I have been known to play a bluegrass ten or two in my life.

But I always wash my fiddle when I get done.

That's what Albert Hash used to say.

[laughter] Albert was a fiddle player that I grew up listening to from up on Whitetop Mountain.

-You know the Ulster-Scots, which Wayne Henderson is one.

But I don't know if Wayne knows that.

The Ulster-Scots were so bad, they were deported from Scotland by the English.

They were in Northern Ireland for about a generation.

They were so bad there, they sent them over here.

And they became the Scotch Irish.

But they did not mix with the Irish, because the Protestant Catholic thing.

They took that stuff very seriously.

So the Ulster's got here.

And they came up in the mountains, just like I was talking about rural trees.

We don't want to be messed with.

So they came to the mountains.

And they were isolated.

They did their own thing.

Tough, boy, survivor.

People once again, very self-reliant.

So they got up in these mountains.

It was so isolated.

And it's breathtakingly beautiful.

All four seasons, you get up in the spring or in the fall and see a heavy frost and the fog, it's just something to see.

And then of course, in the fall, you've got the leaves.

Winter, it's a little bleak.

But the snow's on the mountains.

It's gorgeous.

I mean that's-- And I do think people have always appreciated that beauty when they first got over here, it was like, "Okay, this is home."

Wayne's from Grayson.

And Henderson is an Ulster-Scot name.

So he was Scottish.

[Josh VO] Some stories don't start with fame or fortune.

They start in the margins, in a kid's imagination, with a cardboard box and fishing line standing in for a guitar.

Wayne Henderson never chased the spotlight.

He carried mail for 30 years, built instruments in the spaces between, and somehow ended up crafting guitars and instruments the whole world now whispers about.

More than 1,000 of them shaped by hand, some selling for prices that would make most luthiers blush.

But don't let that modesty fool you.

Wayne is the real deal.

A master craftsman, a cultural treasure, and the kind of artist whose work belongs in the Smithsonian, because it already is.

[Josh] Well, how'd you get into this?

-Uh... I got into it by... probably not being able to afford a good guitar.

So you decided to go make one yourself.

[chuckles] -Yeah.

There was one fella.

He had really a nice old Martin guitar, the only one anywhere in the neighborhood or anywhere that you could even... that I could even think about seeing a good guitar.

But that was his most prized possession.

And he was real particular with it and barely would let me touch it or anything.

But once in a while, I'd go out there to the store and he'd put a nail keg out in the middle of the floor where I couldn't hit it over something and let me play it once in a while.

And I was just absolutely fascinated with the sound and everything of that old Martin guitar.

And his name is E.C.

Ball.

He was a good player, you know.

He influenced me to learn to play too you know, the way he played.

Probably one of my first musical influences about that.

And I'd look at that guitar.

And the reason I got started making them, I just wanted one so bad.

But me or my family could not have possibly afforded a Martin, you know?

[Josh] Sure.

[Wayne] And I always made stuff.

I made my toys when I was a kid and stuff like that.

I just always grew up making stuff.

And I got to thinking, "The only way "I'm ever going to have one of these things, I got to make it."

And one day, he let me draw a-- a cardboard pattern around the outside of that old guitar.

And I didn't have any clue about how to do it.

I made-- even before that, back in the '50s, I'd make them out of cardboard boxes just a square box.

And I'd whittle a neck out of a piece of a 2 by 4 or whatever I find on the farm and put fish line on it.

And it wasn't much of a guitar.

But you could make sound on it.

-[chuckles] -And almost play something.

But then when I got fascinated with his old guitar, got to trying to make one like that.

And I made a guitar or two that just fell apart because I didn't know what kind of glue or anything like that.

But they were almost guitars.

-Almost guitars?

[chuckles] -And then my dad took me to see Albert Hash, who was a fiddle maker that lived not too far away.

Told me how to bend wood.

And he gave me an old door, sort of like that door to the [inaudible] made.

It's just a cheap mahogany plywood is what it is.

Somebody had cut one of those off and ruined it and gave it to Albert.

And Albert sawed me off a big square hunk of that, big enough to make a guitar and said, "Here, take this."

And even though it was just mahogany plywood, Albert told me it was mahogany.

He said, "That's the same thing a Martin's made out of."

That just drove me wild.

I thought I really had something that was about the right thickness.

I didn't have to figure out how to get it thinned.

♪♪ So I took that, and he told me what kind of glue to use.

I got that guitar made.

Probably took me a year.

And I showed my guitar to Albert.

And he looked at this and said, "Oh, my goodness, son.

"If I'd known you'd done that good, I'd have got you some better wood."

And then he did, ordered me a set of rosewood.

-Well, you've come a long ways from cardboard and-- -Yeah, I guess so.

This guitar is number 970.

[Josh] Wow.

-That's a pretty good [inaudible] to be made in a little shop like this by mostly one person.

And I make the most of them for local people like this.

But I've made them for a few famous people, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, and Roseanne Cash, and people, some of them that I trade.

[Josh] I met Vince one time.

He's a real nice down-earth guy.

[Wayne] Vince is a super nice guy and he keeps up with us.

[Josh VO] Funny thing about looking close to home, the closer you look, the more you realize what you've missed.

Finding a world-class luthier tucked into the hills of rural Southwest Virginia feels like enough of a surprise on its own.

But Grayson County doesn't stop there, because just down the road, in a place most people would never think to look sits another giant hiding in plain sight, one that shaped more than 50 NBA players.

[Micah] I had a connection with Oak Hill Academy for like the past 15 years.

And so I spent the majority of my career as a strength and conditioning coach.

I got to know Coach Maher, who was a longtime assistant coach, and Coach Smith, the longtime head coach.

They kind of brought me in as to be the school's strength and conditioning consultant.

And then when the president retired about a year and a half ago, I always had a dream to run a school especially one that's academic and athletic-focused and was kind of outside the box hire.

But here I am.

And now I'm in my second year as president and it's been awesome.

The board kind of asked me when I was interviewing, "Am I ready to move from Orlando, Florida up to the mount of Wilson, Virginia?"

And I really have been up here a lot, known a lot of the people here and said, "The older I get it's not really about where you live, it's about who you live with."

And it's great people here in the entire community, as well as Oak Hill for sure.

Oak Hill is from a basketball perspective, high school basketball perspective, it is the high school basketball name.

The proof is on the wall.

And the banner is with over 40 MBA alumni have come through Oak Hill Academy.

Oak Hill Academy was actually Grayson County's first public school and then evolved into a private school.

It's gone through a few transitions, and then in the early '80s, Dr.

Eisen came in and kind of wanted to also create a nationally known basketball program and started that.

And Coach Smith was hired in 1984, I believe he was an assistant for a year, and then became the head coach.

And I mean he's probably the greatest high school basketball coach of all time.

And so once he got here, his name got out there, and more and more families and coaches were reaching out to him and saying, "Hey, we got a kid that we want to send here."

And a lot of it back then was kids from D.C., from New York City, that tremendous talents, and were not in a great situation at home.

And their families or their coaches were like, "We need to send him somewhere where he can "really be in a safe, nurturing environment and just focus on books and basketball."

♪♪ [Wayne] I'm not all that interested in just trying to make money.

I enjoy my art more than I do making money.

-So how do you go from that kid making stuff now building to selling guitars to Vince Gill and... -Well, I don't know how in the world that happened.

There's a picture right over there somebody just gave me the other day of me when I was, I think, about 20, 21.

And I'm in the Smithsonian.

And even back at that time, it was so unusual that somebody made a guitar that I'd get attention from-- if anybody ever heard about it, they would come on to see.

Looked like a couple of dignitary guys are sitting there watching me play.

And I think that's my number 13 guitar.

Traveled all over playing music too.

I got discovered by the National Council for Traditional Arts.

So they still-- I'm going this coming weekend to do one of their festivals.

Still yet as old as I am.

And with that organization, I got to travel to Asia and Africa, -Wow.

-And all over all sorts of places.

And you wouldn't think a hillbilly from rugby here would-- I never ever thought myself I would be out of this community.

-Grayson County is special, is unique.

It's a place that you'll never truly know what it is unless you're immersed here and you're living here.

Like I said, it's not about where you live.

It's about who you live with.

And the people here-- the people in Grayson are very, very proud of Oak Hill, I think.

And we are very proud to be a part of Grayson County, for sure, as well.

-Folks that will go away from a place end up migrating.

-Right.

I never thought I'd end up here, you know.

I just really thought that I would move away and be gone.

I'm back and I'm very happy here.

In fact, I'll leave even to go to Galax sometimes.

And I think, "I need to get back to Fries."

[chuckles] -What's life been like?

I mean living a lifetime here in Grayson County.

-Well, to me, it's been just perfect.

I've been real fortunate.

I mean I'd go to Nashville and work for them a little bit and find out what it's like around the big city and all that.

And I've been super fortunate to get to go do all that music all over the world and stuff.

But I've never been anywhere that I wasn't very happy to get back home.

-Our greatest commodity is the people here.

And I can say that about Southwest Virginia.

And I can say that about Appalachia.

[laughs] The whole region is the people here.

We're survivors.

We've always been survivors, hard workers, and self-sufficient and maybe a little prideful.

[laughs] ♪♪ [Woman VO] Nestled in the heart of Appalachia, the University of Virginia's College at Wise is where students experience unique regional culture and the great outdoors.

UVA Wise, empowering students to learn and lead in their communities and the world.