A purely acoustic banjo-and-guitar instrumental fueled the car chases in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, and the same duo took a sitcom theme to number one on the country charts. This episode explores how Lester Flatt of Tennessee and Earl Scruggs of North Carolina met in 1945 as hired musicians in Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys, left in early 1948 to form the Foggy Mountain Boys, and built a sonic template that defined modern bluegrass: Scruggs' three-finger rolling banjo as the supercharger and Flatt's thumb-picked rhythm guitar and G-run as the pistons.

The hosts walk through the band they assembled, including Cousin Jake Tullock, Curly Seckler, Paul Warren, and Josh Graves on Dobro, their 1955 Grand Ole Opry induction, and the Martha White Flour sponsorship that funded their television and radio reach. They cover The Ballad of Jed Clampe ...