David Grier has played on Grammy-nominated albums across three decades and been named IBMA Guitarist of the Year three times. This episode looks at how he redefined the acoustic guitar in bluegrass, starting with a childhood in Nashville where his father Lamar Grier played banjo for Bill Monroe, Roland White helped him learn the fretboard, and Clarence White showed what a lead acoustic guitar could do.

The hosts break down the mechanics of flatpicking and crosspicking, explaining how Grier weaves a single pick across multiple strings so that melody, harmony and bass ring out at once without turning to mud. They follow his career from the Virginia band Full Time in 1981, through sideman work with Country Gazette and Doug Dillard, to his 1988 solo debut Freewheeling, his IBMA awards in 1992, 1993 and 1995, the supergroups Psychograss and Hele ...