A cocky bet that he could catch a baseball bare-handed left Charlie Poole with a shattered thumb that healed into a permanent claw-like arch. That injury made the standard clawhammer banjo technique impossible, so the North Carolina textile mill worker developed a three-finger picking style that let his thumb drive a bass line while his index and middle fingers picked out melody. He funded a professional Orpheum No. 3 Special banjo with profits from illegal moonshine, and in 1925 the North Carolina Ramblers took that sound to Columbia Records in New York.

Their $75 session produced Don't Let Your Deal Go Down Blues, which sold over 106,000 copies in a region with roughly 6,000 phonographs, a puzzle explained by communal Saturday night listening. This episode follows Poole's rigid sonic architecture across more than 60 recordings, his death  ...