In 1990 the International Bluegrass Music Association created its Entertainer of the Year award and gave the first one to Hot Rize, and that same year the band disbanded. This episode explores why a Colorado quartet walked away at its summit, beginning with the January 18, 1978, debut, the departure of guitarist Mike Scap three months later, and the reshuffle that put Nick Forster on electric bass and moved Charles Sawtelle to acoustic guitar alongside Tim O'Brien and Pete Wernick.

We look at the name borrowed from the leavening agent in Martha White flour, the Flatt and Scruggs radio theme they revived, the progressive arrangements on albums from Radio Boogie to Take It Home, and the Western swing alter ego Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers that served as a creative sandbox. Then the reunions of the 1990s, Sawtelle's death in 1999, Bryan S ...