Jim McReynolds, born in 1927, and Jesse McReynolds, born in 1929, were raised in Carfax, a small community near Coeburn, Virginia, in a house where their grandfather Charles McReynolds had led the Bull Mountain Moonshiners and recorded at the 1927 Bristol Sessions, the so-called big bang of country music. Jim sang a clear, soaring high tenor and held down rhythm guitar, while Jesse invented two mandolin techniques, cross-picking and a split-string method, that gave the duo a sound no radio listener could mistake for anyone else.

This episode traces their 1952 Capitol Records deal, their run as stars of the Suwannee River Jamboree on WNER in Live Oak, Florida, where they replaced the Stanley Brothers, the Martha White flour sponsorship that carried them to the Grand Ole Opry on March 10, 1964, the number 18 country hit Diesel on My Tail in 1 ...