Gerry Milnes: Maybe we can sit on that log.

Jesse Milnes: Yeah.

[crunching leaves]

Gerry: I'm Gerry Milnes, just about to turn 80 years old. Been playing the fiddle since I was a kid. [fiddle music] I was born and raised in Pennsylvania but started coming down to West Virginia to hear fiddle music in the late 1960s and moved to this valley right here, right over the mountain here in 1975 and got to know a lot of great, great old-time fiddle players here in West Virginia. Jesse backs me up on guitar a lot when we play.

Jesse: I'm Jesse Milnes, Gerry's son. Grew up hearing him play and all the old-timers who he played with. [fiddle/guitar music]

Gerry: I think it was 20 years ago, I went down to Elkview, West Virginia. I heard about this old fiddle maker down there. Everybody called him "Double Ought" Henderson. His name was Oral O. Henderson, and I wanted to photograph him working in his shop. He was always working on a fiddle. He got this fiddle out to show me, and he called it the Cherry Blossom. It's all carved with cherry blossoms all over the side, all over the back is cherry blossoms, and it's made out of wild cherry wood, with a maple neck. It's got a spruce top from Cheat Mountain. Mr. Henderson, he just loved for fiddle players to have his fiddles. I have several old fiddles, but this Cherry Blossom fiddle from "Double Ought" Henderson, made in Elkview, West Virginia, down on Elk River, is my favorite fiddle to play these days. [fiddle/guitar music]

Playing the fiddle, it's been my main interest in life. It's what has gotten me any place I've ever gotten in life, is this thing right here. It's gotten me into good things and a few pickles, but all my interests started with some incident that happened with the fiddle.[fiddle/guitar continue]