Make-A-Wish Helps Rockville Teen Release Original Pop Song (VIDEO & PHOTOS)
Wayne Jones is a self-taught guitar player and songwriter and a Rockville High School student. He also is a 17-year-old diagnosed with kidney disease and end stage renal failure.
But, with the help of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, a local recording studio and radio station, he is also a recording artist.
“I like that after you write a song you can play it and it is a feeling to know you did it and you wrote your own song. It feels really nice,” Wayne said days after the Make-a-Wish Mid-Atlantic granted him the opportunity to partner with D.C. radio station 107.3 and Omega Recording studios with Grammy Award winning producer Peter Novak in Rockville to produce the song Cheyenne, record him playing and singing it and then release it on the radio station.
Wayne’s road to the wish began with a diagnosis of focal glomerulosclerosis, a heredity kidney disease, his mother Dawn Jones said she knew nothing about.
“No one in the family ever hears of it and then one day his legs were swollen bad and he was in kidney failure,” Dawn Jones told MyMCMedia.
That put Wayne on the road to dozens of doctor visits and a treatment plan that has him going for dialysis three times a week.
“It is a lot to deal with,” his mother said. “You don’t get to do all the things the other kids do.”
But a lot of other kids don’t have the talent to write, play and sing their own song. And he said he owes his talent to a little girl he met in dialysis.
“She was not even one year old and her mother was buying presents for those kids in dialysis from money people were donating. I asked for a guitar. A few months later that girl died. Then I really had to play that guitar. I taught myself on YouTube.”
His song is about a life-long friendship with a girl named Cheyenne.
“The story of the song is the friendship and I wanted it to stay that way forever,” Wayne said.
Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic helped Wayne fulfill his dream, according to Make-A-Wish Director of Communications Danielle Davis.
Sarah, Ty and Mel on DC 107.3 agreed to help out as well and on May 15 Wayne made his musical debut.
“It was fulfilling to have him fulfill his dream and moving for our listeners. We hope it inspires people to donate to make a wish,” said Jeremiah Tittle, executive producer of show. “We believe it is an opportunity to think of each day as kind of your last and make the most of your own wish.”
Wayne’s mom said she cried watching her son’s wish become a reality.
“I told him ‘you are a star;” Dawn Jones said.
Cheyenne is just the beginning of Wayne’s songwriting career, he said.
“I think I’m might try to write a love song,” he said.
You can donate to the Make a Wish Foundation here.
Photos courtesy Mix 107.3 radio station
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