In the early 1970s, a band with mandolin, banjo and fiddle walked on stage with hair past their shoulders and launched into Beatles songs, protest anthems and Bob Marley grooves. This deep dive traces New Grass Revival from their roots in the Bluegrass Alliance, where Sam Bush and Courtney Johnson joined Ebo Walker, through the 1972 rebrand with Dobro player Curtis Burch and the debut album The Arrival of the New Grass Revival, into a decade of scorn from traditionalists who saw the band as an insult to Bill Monroe's vision.

We follow the arrival of bassist and vocalist John Cowan in 1974, the band's survival by building a following among college crowds and jam band fans, their 1979 to 1981 run opening for and backing Leon Russell, and the 1981 burnout that led Johnson and Burch to leave. The episode then covers the addition of Bela Fleck a ...