From Naples to Nashville: Joshua Hedley makes country music's big time

He's never too far from home, in his custom seafoam rhinestone suit with powder blue herons on each arm, a massive alligator in a swamp on the back and stalking copper panthers on the front.

Joshua Hedley wears his Southwest Florida pride literally on his sleeves, and he'll flash that look when he performs Friday night at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.

It will be the Opry debut of Hedley, 33, a long way from performing since he was 11 at Collier County VFW and American Legion halls and from age 13 on at Porky's Last Stand (now Cracklin' Jacks) restaurant lounge along Collier Boulevard in Golden Gate Estates, where he grew up. 

"I asked for a fiddle when I was 3 years old," Hedley said in a recent telephone interview from New York City, where he was promoting his first album, "Mr. Jukebox," and later performing concerts.

"I asked again when I was 8 and I got one. And I just started playing."

Hedley recorded "Mr. Jukebox" on Third Man Records, the independent record label that musician, songwriter and record producer Jack White founded in his native Detroit nearly two decades ago. The title track video already has more than 102,000 views on YouTube in less than three months. 

White discovered Hedley a couple of years ago, and his career began its steep ascent. Rolling Stone magazine and others in the music industry have referred to Hedley as a country purist, one of its next great stars.

Hedley said he was touring in Australia and fans afterward asked to buy his music. He told them he never recorded any, so he made a four-song extended play when he returned to Nashville, where he has lived since he was 19.

"Jack got a hold of it and really liked it," Hedley said. "I worked with him prior in the studio, working on some stuff he was producing.”

White then signed Hedley to Third Man Records. They have been friends ever since, he said.

"He saw something in me and wanted to give me an opportunity," Hedley said. "He’s just like that. He’s not interested in shaping an artist. He wants to sign people who already have an identity and haven't had an opportunity, and to showcase that on a bigger stage.

“He’s got a really great brain for art. He’s awesome; he’s a great dude.”

Hedley joins other up-and-coming artists Margo Price and Lillie Mae on the label. They're among a wave of country artists who include Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell and others looking to perhaps elevate the genre.

For years, Hedley said, he disliked "bro country," music by the likes of Luke Bryan, whose songs tend to focus more on beer, trucks and women.

Over the years, though, he has learned to accept that country music has room for a wide array of artists. 

“I don’t think it has to be a black-and-white thing. It’s a spectrum," he said. "Jimmie Rodgers sounds completely different from Kenny Rogers, but they’re both country. There’s room for everybody.”

For Hedley, the journey has been worthwhile. He said the music in his Estates home where he was raised was his mom's 1960s pop music, including The Beach Boys and Neil Diamond, and his dad's soul and rhythm and blues from the likes of Otis Redding.

"No one really knows why I knew what fiddle or why I wanted one," he said. "The cliché is always you sing country music because as you were growing up your dad was listening to Hank Williams all the time. But it was backward for me; I think I turned my parents on to country music.”

So there he was, on stage since he was 11, playing mainly in bars and halls with men in their 40s and 50s. 

But his mom, Susan Hedley, said she and her husband attended his shows at Porky's.

“He never played there alone," said Hedley, 73. "We were always sitting right down in front not drinking.”

She said her son began taking classic violin lessons when he was 8, but he decided to play country music. Joshua Hedley eventually began attending the Mark O'Connor fiddle camp in Nashville. 

By age 15, Susan Hedley said, he began singing. Joshua attended Gulf Coast High School before leaving by age 19 for Nashville. 

“I really didn’t go out to make it or anything," he said. "I wanted to live there, I wanted to get out of town and see and explore and all of that."

"I knew Nashville was the place I needed to be. I wanted to work, I wanted to play with that caliber of musician and get to really play all the time. That’s sort of the only place you can do it, is up there.”

Hedley will perform on the Opry stage after 7 p.m. Friday, wearing the rhinestone suit he had made to show his Florida pride. After that, he will tour the U.S. and Australia through early August. 

“That’s going to be crazy," he said of his first Opry performance. "It’s always been if you’re a country musician, that’s the dream, to play on the Opry. It guess I’m a bit of a realist. It’s not something I ever thought I'd get to do."

Susan Hedley said she will attend her son's show Friday. She said her husband and Joshua's father, Richard, would be proud of him. Richard died three years ago, and the last song on "Mr. Jukebox" is "When You Wish Upon A Star," which she said pays tribute him.

She said she and her husband encouraged their son.

“If you’re a musician and it’s really what’s inside you, there isn’t a Plan B," Susan Hedley said.

"There’s no sense in pushing him to have a Plan B. Music goes through his head, it always has. We’ve supported him completely all the way through. We made sure he had the tools he needed.”