Ronnie Milsap, Randy Travis, Natalie Grant, The Roys, Ashton Shepherd and Rodney Atkins join members of Committed perform music from the Little House on the Prairie books. Photos by Andy Heidt

Dr. Dale Cockrell, director of MTSU's Center for Popular Music and co-producer of Pa's Fiddle The Music of America at the Loveless Barn

Music City all-stars are bringing Charles “Pa” Ingalls’s old-time fiddle music and songs alive for a PBS special, and MTSU will be right by the fireside.

Pa’s Fiddle: America’s Music features award-winning musician and Musical Director Randy Scruggs and an all-star string band—Matt Combs, Dennis Crouch, Chad Cromwell, Hoot Hester and Shad Cobb—along with artists Randy Travis, Rodney Atkins, Ronnie Milsap, Ashton Shepherd, The Roys, Natalie Grant and NBC’s The Sing-Off champions Committed.

Dr. Dale Cockrell, director of MTSU’s renowned Center for Popular Music and a scholar of the early American tunes immortalized in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House on the Prairie” book series, coordinated aspects of the music special taped Jan. 6 in Nashville.

MTSU students were behind the scenes to film Inside Pa’s Fiddle, a documentary on the inspiration, creation and execution of the special. The students’ documentary will accompany the PBS special in a planned DVD package.

Pa’s Fiddle: America’s Music will be broadcast during the 2012 June pledge-drive season on PBS stations throughout the nation. A new CD, Pa’s Fiddle: American Fiddler, featuring a portion of the 127 songs mentioned in the Little House books, is also available now at laura-ingalls-wilder.com.

“It’s terribly exciting to see this all finally happening,” said Cockrell, who also is a professor emeritus of musicology at Vanderbilt University. “But as exciting as it’s been for me, it’s even more exciting to see these excellent musicians get so excited about playing this music. They don’t get the opportunity to do that very much, and to see them almost melting in the studio in the presence of this great music is a wonderful opportunity.”

Cockrell, who is the founder, owner and president of Pa’s Fiddle Recordings LLC, a record label dedicated to recording the music referenced in Wilder’s books, teamed with actor Dean Butler, who played Wilder’s husband Almanzo in the Little House TV series, to create the Pa’s Fiddle project.

“I’ve been working on the Pa’s Fiddle project for about 12 years now,” Cockrell explained, “and sometimes it’s felt like we’ve been pushing that boulder up that hill every day. Now we’re finally at the top and get to share this music with everyone.”

The student crew from the Department of Electronic Media Communication in MTSU’s College of Mass Communication will be led by Professor Tom Neff, founder and former CEO of The Documentary Channel and an award-winning producer and director. Six to eighteen students will be onsite for the special, and another six to eighteen students will work in post-production on editing, graphics and sound with Professors Clare Bratten and Matt Foley.

PBS editor Bill Morris gives final instructions to MTSU EMC prior to the filming

EMC major Sam Willey, a junior at MTSU, will direct the behind-the-scenes documentary in Nashville. Haley Ellis, who graduated in December from MTSU, and Megan Brantley, another junior EMC major, are line producers.

“This is a wonderful learning experience for us all,” Neff said. “I’m thrilled to be involved and help students any way I can. It’s a unique and wonderful way MTSU is tying the professional world to the student world. We’re always looking for real-world projects, so this is a great mix.”

Students worked through the spring to create an archival-quality product to meet the PBS airing and sales deadline.

“Sometimes it’s a blessing for a media project to have a fast deadline,” joked new EMC department chairman Billy Pittard, a multi-Emmy-winning media entrepreneur and MTSU alumnus. “It’s great to see our students shine on a project like this.”

For more information about the “Pa’s Fiddle” project, visit laura-ingalls-wilder.com. For information about MTSU’s Center for Popular Music, visit popmusic.mtsu.edu.