Four weeks after joining Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in September 1940, Clyde Moody was handed Monroe's own mandolin at the bandleader's first Bluebird recording session, the only known time another Blue Grass Boy played mandolin at a Monroe session. This episode explores the life of the Genial Gentleman of Country Music, born in Cherokee, North Carolina in 1915, from his early days with J.E. Mainer's Mountaineers to his role as a core architect of bluegrass, the million-selling 1947 hit Shenandoah Waltz, and a 1955 tour alongside a young Elvis Presley.

The hosts break down the mechanics behind Moody's value: a two-finger thumb-and-index picking style that let him play bass line and rhythm at once, and a mellow baritone that grounded Monroe's high lonesome tenor around a single ribbon microphone. They follow his 1944 departure for a solo  ...