In 1943, a 17-year-old Don Reno received a job offer from Bill Monroe and turned it down to enlist in the Army, eventually serving with Merrill's Marauders in the jungles of Burma. This episode follows the Carolina farm kid who borrowed a guitar at age five, played radio with the Morris Brothers at 13 and Arthur Smith at 14, and came home from the war to find audiences telling him he sounded like Earl Scruggs.

The hosts explain how that comparison drove Reno to engineer the single-string Reno style with double stops, double-time picking and triple pull-offs, and how he simultaneously pioneered flatpicking guitar, teaching a young Hank Garland, composing Country Boy Rock and Roll, and earning Doc Watson's credit as the first person he heard play fiddle tunes on guitar. They cover his 1948 stint with the Bluegrass Boys, 14 years with Red Smil ...