In 1968, two versions of the same banjo instrumental by the same artist sat on the Billboard Hot 100 at once, nearly 20 years after the song was first cut. This episode traces Foggy Mountain Breakdown from its December 11, 1949 recording by Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, explaining the breakdown format that rotates solos among players and why guitarists and mandolinists still learn breaks that mirror Earl Scruggs' original banjo part.

The hosts connect the song to Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Breakdown, which Scruggs helped write, and show how keeping the opening double hammer-on but shifting to an E minor chord instead of F major gave the tune its sense of urgency and flight. They follow it into the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, the 1968 chart run in the US, Canada and the UK, the 1969 Grammy, its 1999 Grammy Hall of Fame inductio ...