When you hear the name Monroe in bluegrass, you think of Bill, but his older brother Charlie was the original lead singer of the Monroe Brothers, and his first big break in show business came as a dancer, not a musician. This episode follows Charlie from his birth in Rosine, Kentucky in July 1903 into a household where sister Bertha played guitar, brother Birch played fiddle, and young Bill played mandolin. After both parents died, Charlie and Birch left for Detroit and then grueling 12-hour shifts at oil refineries near Hammond, Indiana, where Bill joined them in 1929, and the brothers kept playing small venues in their off hours.

We trace the 1932 offer from Tom Owen of the WLS Barn Dance that had the brothers touring as dancers for two years, the 1934 Texas Crystals radio sponsorship that Birch refused, and how the resulting fiddle-less  ...