On July 4, 1957, a car accident sidelined Buzz Busby and the Bayou Boys before a Washington, D.C. holiday show, and a scratch band of local musicians was thrown together to fill the slot. That emergency lineup of Charlie Waller on guitar and lead vocals, John Duffey on mandolin and tenor, Bill Emerson on banjo, and Larry Leahy on bass became the Country Gentlemen. This episode explains how postwar Appalachian migration to D.C. government jobs created the talent pool that made such a band possible, and how the first classic lineup of Waller, Duffey, Eddie Adcock, and Tom Gray from 1960 to 1964 pioneered what historians call progressive bluegrass.

We look at how they used driving banjo rolls and acoustic instrumentation as a Trojan horse to bring covers by Gordon Lightfoot and Steve Goodman to purist audiences, how Waller's smooth baritone be ...