For the first three decades of his life, Kenny Baker had little interest in bluegrass. This episode follows the fiddler born June 26, 1926 in Burdine, Kentucky, who worked the coal mines for Bethlehem Steel and served in the Navy before pursuing music, and whose ears were tuned to western swing fiddler Marion Sumner and the jazz of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli rather than local mountain players. His first major job was replacing Sumner himself in Don Gibson's band.

The hosts explain how hearing Bill Monroe's Wheel Hoss and Roanoke convinced Baker that bluegrass demanded the rigor he had trained for, leading to his first Bluegrass Boys recordings on December 15, 1957 and a record 25-year tenure. They detail his long bow style, the Uncle Pen project Monroe entrusted to him, how his intricate lines pushed Bill Keith to invent melodi ...