In 1975, on a chart dominated by Elton John, Pink Floyd, and Earth, Wind & Fire, a live acoustic bluegrass record reached number 99 on the Billboard 200, and the band that made it had already broken up. Old & In the Way formed in San Francisco in 1973 with Jerry Garcia on banjo, David Grisman on mandolin, Peter Rowan on guitar, and John Kahn on upright bass, cycling through fiddlers Richard Greene and John Hartford before Vassar Clements and his "hillbilly jazz" locked in the lineup.

The band played roughly 50 shows, mostly in 1973 with one festival reunion in 1974, before Garcia's Grateful Dead schedule ended the run. Every official recording comes from live tapes, primarily from the Boarding House in San Francisco in October 1973. This episode covers the repertoire that placed "Pig in a Pen" beside Rowan's "Panama Red" and a blueg ...