Songwriter Jerry Salley Discusses Music, Nashville, and "Saving Grace"

Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you?

I have. I'm Gracey Rosenberger, and in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident, leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me, but over time, my questions changed and I discovered courage to trust God. That understanding, along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs, led me to establish Standing With Hope. I was in West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people. On a regular basis, we purchase and ship equipment and supplies.

And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracey.

And I am standing with hope. His name is Jerry Sally. I'm going to take that mountain and Jerry Sally is with us.

And Reba just absolutely just nailed that song. And I know you got to be proud of that recording, Jerry. So welcome to the show. Well, thank you, Peter. I appreciate the opportunity to be with you this afternoon. And yeah, that was quite an honor to get a song recorded by the great Reba McIntyre. I just appreciate her so much.

And again, I appreciate the opportunity to be with you this afternoon. Jerry came to my knowledge. I've been hearing his name bandied around the studio a lot when I worked with my friend Chris Latham, who helped me with Gracey's record and with my record. And in fact, Chris and I co-wrote the theme song of the show. And we tried to get John to sing it, but No. This is Peter's show, you know.

And even Pro Tools didn't help with that one. It just went. I sang it, but way off key.

So. But Jerry's name came up in more conversations and I got to know a little bit of his music and hear a little bit about him. And I said, you know, I want to have him on the show. And I've listened to his songs and I love that song, by the way, I'm going to take that mountain because I think that's a great song for us as caregivers. You know, I want to take that mountain. And we're warriors in this thing.

We're battling. And I just wanted to hear your thoughts and heart on writing a song. Then I found your song Saving Grace. John, the song is called Saving Grace. We talk about this all the time.

And I'm thinking with my wife named Grace and all the things. And when I heard this song, it really just tore my heart out. And I went to Nashville to be a songwriter. I majored in composition and I am a songwriter and I've written some songs and I've done okay with it, but nothing on level what you do. But I'm always interested in songwriters and how they do it.

And what they do and what inspires them. And music is such a big part of my life. And so, Jerry, I just want you to first off, how did you get into songwriting?

Where did it start with you? Well, I wrote my first song when I was 16 years old. I grew up in a pretty musical family as far as we didn't perform, you know, publicly as far as professionally is the right word I'm looking for. But my dad played five string banjo. He loved flattened scrubs and I was raised in bluegrass and country and gospel music. And when I was 10 years old, dad got me my first guitar and I fell in love with music. I just fell in love with it at a very early age. Started performing when I was 12 years old on stages around southern Ohio where I was born and was raised.

And started getting to, I was a big fan of a guy named Tom T. Hall, which is one of the countries. So I just became, I was kind of a weird kid because to be that young and to be so enamored with what he did and how he told stories was a little different, I think, for most kids my age. But I would learn his songs and so I would literally write them out by hand.

This is before we had computers and laptops and all that stuff. And so I would have to write out the lyrics to learn the songs, to sing them when I would get on stage. And I just fell in love with his ability to write and he was a big inspiration to me to want to become a songwriter. I wrote my first song when I was 16. It wasn't very good.

You'll never hear it. But that was really, I just had an inspiration. I felt like God was calling me to be in the music business. He had given me a talent that I was going to try to use and I was very fortunate to, I went to college. I'd been to Nashville a couple of times and met some people and had some connections here. But they all encouraged me to try to go ahead and get my degree before I moved here.

So that's what I did. I graduated from college in 1982 and within about eight weeks of graduating, I had an apartment here and was auditioning for a little place called Opryland U.S. And that's where I got my first job. And it was while I was performing there that I went to downtown to Music Row and knocked on doors and started meeting people and introducing myself. And we were very fortunate, too. I was in a cast of really incredible people.

Steven Curtis Chapman, who was just a little Stevie Chapman at the time, but he and I were flat and scrubs together at Opryland in our Country Music U.S.A. show. By the way, it broke my heart when they tore down Opryland and put a mall out there. Because I used to take the kids out there with season passes all the time and it was just, I was like, what are y'all thinking, man?

Yeah, I was the same way. Even after I left the park, we would take family when they would come to town. That's where we would take them to visit and have fun and watch the shows and ride the rides.

I don't know what they were thinking either, but that's a whole other story. I used to talk to Earl Scruggs at the Waffle House over there on Sidco and Harding. He would come in almost every weekend and I'd talk to him and he'd tell stories about the Beverly Hillbillies and everything else. That's the part of Nashville that I think that, sadly, Jerry, may be gone forever. I don't know. What do you think?

Well, I think it is. I am so grateful that I came to Nashville when I did. Because I got to know Porter Wagner and Roy Acuff and Minnie Pearl and all these people that I grew up listening to and made me want to be in the music business.

People like Harlan Howard was one of the greatest songs I had ever heard. It was a great time. The mid-80s was just an incredible, special, magical time to be in Nashville on the road meeting folks and learning my craft.

I was just very blessed. Really was. Gracie used to get her hair done at a place there in Green Hills right next to Sarah Kedd and Minnie Pearl.

She used to talk to her all the time. In those days you would actually see people. You could actually go down the street and you would see folks. I was behind Conway Twitty one time in Taco Bell when there used to be one there in Green Hills. He was in front of me and I recognized him. I was thinking, John, the lady comes up, welcome to Taco Bell, may I take your order? And Conway would say, hello, darling. I was just playing that out when I was behind Conway Twitty at the Taco Bell.

That's so bright. Our theme song that we have for the show that we wrote together, Chris wrote the melody while he was working the ten Lizzie cars out there at Opryland. I wrote the groove of it about the same time and I just kind of hung onto it for years and years and years and years later.

We connected up on it and he had this melody and I had this groove and we put this together, but he was working the old ten. John, you remember the ten Lizzie cars out there at Opryland? I was past the time that I showed up here. I showed up about 2002 and didn't really have an opportunity.

But my old gig was doing home movies for people and I would transfer their old eight-millimeter film and sixteen-millimeter film and videotapes and everything like that. I got to do so many things, but one of the ones that really stuck out was the officer who ended up pulling over George on his lawn. George Jones got a DUI on his lawn mower. I transferred that footage for his retirement.

That is wonderful. Well, I interrupted you, Jerry. I'm sorry about that. It's hard when we can't see each other, so I hate that.

But yeah, go ahead. What were you going to say? I was just simply going to say, you know, we had so many special members of that cast that I was in. Marty Rowe, who went on to be the lead singer for Diamond Rio. And he played in Diamond.

He's still a member of Diamond Rio. And I did. We were talking about Minnie Pearl there. Reminded me that I couldn't dance. I still can't dance.

I'm not a dancer. So we had a little part in the show where a girl would play Minnie Pearl and a guy would play Rod Brasfield. Rod Brasfield was a very famous comedian in the late 50s, a country comedian. And he and Minnie Pearl did a lot of TV shows back in the day and did the Opry a lot.

They were very close friends. Well, when I got a job out there and they realized I couldn't dance, which is for the dancing part, right after the comedian part. So I was I was very fortunate, actually. I got to play the part of Rod Brasfield.

And so because of my inability to dance, which was a good thing because I really enjoyed playing the comedy part. And me and I played Minnie Pearl with a young lady named Shonda Pierce, who went on to be a very, very well known Christian comedian. And she's.

Yeah. And so she and I were Minnie Pearl and Rod Brasfield together. And the real Minnie Pearl took us under her wing and would teach us the jokes that they would tell.

So I learned all my Rod Brasfield jokes from Minnie Pearl herself. And so it was just a really special time back then. And we all went on. It was the 80s in Nashville were a very different time. And I was privileged to be there as well.

And Gracie. And it was just it was a wonderful time. And so many dear friends, you know, like I said, they all got into the business at the same time with all of us doing different things. And I'm still mad that I'm not a songwriter professionally, but I think I've just I've accepted it, John, at this point.

I've just accepted it. Well, I wanted to I want to take a moment on this song, Saving Grace. You know, one of the things about gospel and country songs and so forth, a lot of them, there's just always a great story behind the songs. It's not just a formula song that somebody wants to write about, you know, just benign things. There's always an impetus behind it.

Well, what drove this with you? Well, I co-wrote this with a buddy of mine who unfortunately just passed away another great comedian, but also a great songwriter, a fellow by the name of Aaron Wilburn. And Aaron was became really well known by appearing on a lot of the Bill Gaither videos over the years. But back in the day, this had been in the early to early 1990s. Aaron and I had been buddies for a while and been writing a lot of songs together. We'd written a gospel song called If It Wasn't For Grace.

And I was down in Destin with my family on vacation. I was thinking about that song and I thought Alzheimer's was becoming a very huge issue. There was a lot of material out about it.

You know, when I was growing up, they didn't really call it Alzheimer's until I was older. And so reading a lot of articles, reading, having a lot of friends who are going through this with relatives. And Aaron and I had not personally experienced it, but we had a lot of friends that were going through it. And I and I thought about this song, this idea called Saving Grace. And I wrote I'd written a course and I thought when I get home, I'm going to share this with Aaron because I got the idea from the other song that he and I had written together.

And he loved it. And we got together and wrote it together. And it was really strange because it was after we wrote the song that we both experienced it firsthand. His mother was diagnosed about three years after we wrote it and my grandmother about seven years later. And I remember the first time I've sang it out in public.

I had a gentleman come up to me whose wife had just passed away and he was just I didn't know what to say. It was so difficult, but the song really touched him and he really just wrecked it. It did.

It really did. And it was about it was almost 10 years after we wrote the song that we finally got it recorded. And when we did, we got it recorded three times that year. The Oak Ridge Boys recorded it. Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, which is one of the greatest bluegrass bands ever recorded it. And then a young lady named Gina Jeffries in Australia.

She was like the Reaver McIntyre of Australia at the time, huge country star in the 90s over there. And she recorded it. So we finally did get it recorded. And I've recorded it since then. And it's just it's been a very, very special song to me. And to realize how close we came to getting it right later, you know, having not experienced it firsthand initially just really, really meant a lot to me.

You did get it right. And Joe Bonsel from the Oak Ridge Boys has been on the show quite a bit. In fact, I texted him just for you were coming on to let him know. And he just says he just loves you. And I love him too.

They're just great folks. But the version we have is of you singing this, right? Yes, I believe that's right. This is and actually this is a recording I made that Chris Latham, our dear friend Chris, was the engineer on this. And help me help me with the produce. Well, he I produced it, but he recorded all the vocals and did the mixing.

And as I as I like to call him Grammy Award winning Chris Latham. And I think I want to play this now and we're just going to take a moment to play this. We may not be able to do the whole song, but I want to play at least enough of it so people can hear this. And then I'll tell them where they can go get it.

But if you go and kick kick it in there. Yes. Thanks. Lately Grace hasn't been herself. And he's noticed the change. Like forgetting friends they have known for years and misplacing all her things. He'd make a joke and they'd both laugh and blame it on old age.

But it's not funny anymore. She can't remember his name. He believes way down deep she still knows who he is. Forty years of memories just can't disappear like this.

The doctors say it's hopeless. Her past has been erased. But he'll spend the rest of his life saving Grace. Raised five kids on a farmer's pay.

Vietnam took a son. Watching Grace live like this is the hardest thing he's done. He sits there by her bed sometimes while she's fast asleep. Tells her all about herself.

Strokes her hair at once. He believes way down deep she still knows who he is. Forty years of memories just can't disappear like this.

The doctors say it's hopeless. Her past has been erased. But he'll spend the rest of his life saving Grace. The woman that he's loved for years is trapped somewhere in the past. Tonight he swears she smiled at him and almost spoke his name. He believes way down deep she still knows who he is. Forty years of memories just can't disappear like this.

The doctors say it's hopeless. Her past has been erased. But he'll spend the rest of his life saving Grace. Lately Grace hasn't been herself. That is Saving Grace by Jerry Sally. Given that I am a caregiver for a woman named Grace, you can imagine how that song just wrecks me. Jerry, that's just beautiful.

That is just beautiful. I know that you made, when you and Chris did that in the studio, Chris Latham, I know you made him blubber because I know he blubbers. The band's got a heart about as big as Texas. I mean, you know, and I just love that. And when you write a song like that, that's got your heart in it. That is not something you just write, hey, let's just put together something to make it clever. You're putting your soul into that song, don't you?

That is true. Words mean things to me. And I don't just write a song. A lot of times I'll rewrite a song. I just, I want to, if it moves me when I'm writing it, I have a feeling it'll touch somebody else, or at least I hope it does.

And that was one of those very special songs that we just, we worked on it till we got it right. And got the emotion that we felt like it needed because the whole purpose for me for writing songs is to communicate with people. And if I can't communicate a story and make someone believe it and relate to it, then there's no reason for me to write a song to be totally frank about it.

That's my whole goal when I sit down. I don't always accomplish that, but that's my goal as a writer, to try to communicate a message and relate to the folks that hear it. Well, that's old school Nashville writing, too.

You know, that was the thing. You're telling a story, you're putting your heart in there, you're trying to touch people in a way, and I love that. And I love what you learned from the old school writers, and you've carried it forward. One of the things that we talk about on this show a lot is the need for caregivers to express themselves and get things out of their heart that are maybe bottled up in there.

And we encourage everything. I mean, from songwriting to gardening to woodworking. John is a spectacular, is it calligrapher, John? Is that the right? Calligrapher, yeah. Well, thank you. Oh, he is. I mean, not just doing stuff like doodling and signing his autograph, which he does a lot for his many fans. I do, I do.

But he does this beautiful script and things that really touch people's heart in a way, saying a quote or something and giving that to people, just very artistic. But whatever it takes to do it, and a lot of people have music inclinations, and they're afraid to maybe pick up a guitar or a keyboard and write something down because they're afraid it won't be good enough. Keyboards are probably ahead of the computer. Well, that's true.

Don't pick up a keyboard. But what would you say to those folks who may be timid about that? What would you say to them? As a veteran songwriter, I mean, you are a very successful songwriter. You've had hits by some of the biggest names out there. And what would you say to that person who's timid about picking up a pen and paper or a guitar or something and doing that?

What would you say to them? Well, I would say, first of all, that we all have a song in our set, in us. We all have a song in us.

We all have a God-given talent of some kind. And that music is a healing agent. Music heals and touches especially those, many of those, if not everyone that we care for, regardless of the illness they're going through or what we're facing with them. Music can be a healing opportunity for them. So I would encourage everybody who is a caregiver to, even if you don't have a talent for playing an instrument or don't think you can, to at least pick something up, write down a few words.

It can be something special for your family, for the person you love or the person you're caring for. You don't have to do this professionally or commercially to be able to touch people. And that's the great thing about music in general is how people react to it. I can't count the times that, I've worked with some autistic children, for instance, who cannot verbalize. They cannot carry on a conversation with you.

They just can't. But if you tell them you're going to play a song and you strike that chord, they can sing every note of that song perfectly and never miss a word, never miss a melody. It's just, it's incredible the way music can be used to communicate and to heal and to create relationships and heal relationships. And so if you have any kind of desire to do that at all, you can't be afraid of it. God will guide you. You pray about it. You'd be prayerful about it. God will guide you and help you create music and melodies and words that touch the people you care for. I believe that with all my heart. I've seen it in person more than once. And I just think that it's a great, music is a great opportunity to touch people.

It's just that simple. Hans Christian Andersen, the writer, used to say, when words fail, music speaks. And I live by that statement. And I played in nursing homes a lot of times for folks. And I looked over and there were people that were just listlessly looking out the window, completely oblivious to what's going on around them, just kind of slumped over in their chair. But when I started playing an old hymn, they would mouth the words.

They knew them, even though they didn't necessarily know what was going on around them. And Kim, Kim Campbell, Glen Campbell's widow, been on the show a time or two, and they used to live down the road from us in Nashville when we lived there. And music was like one of the last things to go with Glen. And it's amazing what music can do to people.

And I would, you know, a lot of times we just had music going in the hospital with Gracie and so forth. And so I encourage, I mean, you've heard it from a professional. Jerry's about as professional at this as you can get. And he's saying, don't be afraid of the song that's in you. You're not doing this to go out and try to get a gold record. You're doing this because it's important to you. Gold records may come, but it's more important that you be authentic to the music that's in your soul to do that. Did I say that well enough, John? I think you're passable.

John is my fact checker. No, but music is so important to us. And while I mentioned earlier how I did, you know, like video editing for people, and oftentimes I would do things for funerals where you have a slide show and, you know, they would get through like picking out the pictures and putting them in order. But as soon as you threw that song behind it, that reminded them of who they, you know, all of that stuff. It was something incredibly powerful.

And so many times people just broke down in the middle of that, you know, remembering, you know, dad's favorite song or something. I would imagine your song Saving Grace will be around for a very long time and touching hearts for a long time. Jerry, that is a beautiful song.

You are a gift. You are a gift to as a songwriter and just as an individual. Thank you for taking the time and trusting me with your music and your heart to come on the show. I hope it's been encouraging to you. And I know it's been encouraging to John and me and to our audience. And I hope you'll come back. Keep writing more songs like this. And we'd love to have you back.

Well, I would love that. Thank you to John and Peter. Thank you so much. We appreciate you all so much and everything that you do. Our pleasure.

You're quite welcome. JerrySally.com. That's Sally with an E-Y. JerrySally.com for more information.

This is Peter Rosenberger. Hope for the caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. We'll see you next time.

Thanks so much for being with us. This is John Butler and I produce Hope for the Caregiver with Peter Rosenberger. Some of you know the remarkable story of Peter's wife, Gracie, and recently Peter talked to Gracie about all the wonderful things that have emerged from her difficult journey. Take a listen. Gracie, when you envisioned doing a prosthetic limb outreach, did you ever think that inmates would help you do that?

Not in a million years. When you go to the facility run by CoreCivic and you see the faces of these inmates that are working on prosthetic limbs that you have helped collect from all over the country, that you put out the plea for, and they're disassembling. You see all these legs, like what you have, your own prosthetic legs. And arms.

And arms. When you see all this, what does that do to you? It makes me cry because I see the smiles on their faces and I know, I know what it is to be locked someplace where you can't get out without somebody else allowing you to get out. Of course, being in the hospital so much and so long.

And so these men are so glad that they get to be doing, as one band said, something good finally with my hands. Did you know before you became an amputee that parts of prosthetic limbs could be recycled? No, I had no idea. You know, I thought of peg leg. I thought of wooden legs. I never thought of titanium and carbon legs and flex feet and sea legs and all that.

I never thought about that. As you watch these inmates participate in something like this, knowing that they're helping other people now walk, they're providing the means for the supplies to get over there, what does that do to you just on a heart level? I wish I could explain to the world what I see in there. And I wish that I could be able to go and say, this guy right here, he needs to go to Africa with us. I never not feel that way.

Every time, you know, you always make me have to leave. I don't want to leave them. I feel like I'm at home with them. And I feel like that we have a common bond that I would have never expected that only God could put together. Now that you've had an experience with it, what do you think of the faith-based programs that CoreCivic offers?

I think they're just absolutely awesome. And I think every prison out there should have faith-based programs like this because the return rate of the men that are involved in this particular faith-based program and the other ones like it. But I know about this one is just an amazingly low rate compared to those who don't have them. And I think that that says so much.

That doesn't have anything to do with me. It just has something to do with God using somebody broken to help other broken people. If people want to donate a used prosthetic limbs, whether from a loved one who passed away or, you know, somebody who outgrew them, you've donated some of your own for them to do. How do they do that? Oh, please go to standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Thanks, Gracie.