Jim McReynolds, born in 1927, and Jesse McReynolds, born in 1929, were raised in Carfax, a small community near Coeburn, Virginia, in a house where their grandfather Charles McReynolds had led the Bull Mountain Moonshiners and recorded at the 1927 Bristol Sessions, the so-called big bang of country music. Jim sang a clear, soaring high tenor and held down rhythm guitar, while Jesse invented two mandolin techniques, cross-picking and a split-string method, that gave the duo a sound no radio listener could mistake for anyone else.

This episode traces their 1952 Capitol Records deal, their run as stars of the Suwannee River Jamboree on WNER in Live Oak, Florida, where they replaced the Stanley Brothers, the Martha White flour sponsorship that carried them to the Grand Ole Opry on March 10, 1964, the number 18 country hit Diesel on My Tail in 1967, their 1993 IBMA Hall of Honor induction and 1997 National Heritage Fellowship presented at the White House, and the cruel year of 2002 when both brothers were diagnosed with cancer and Jim died on December 31 at age 75. It also covers Jesse’s fearless final chapter, from his 2010 Grateful Dead tribute recorded at age 81 to touring with his grandsons until his death in 2023 at 93.

• What cross-picking and the split-string method actually do on a mandolin, and why they helped Jesse cut through a loud 1950s string band
• Why a baking flour company held the keys to country music stardom in the 1950s and 1960s
• How a strict division of labor, Jim on business and Jesse on arrangements, kept the longest active brother duet in country music together for 55 years
• The In the Heat of the Night Christmas album where Jesse played mandolin behind Carroll O’Connor
• Grandsons Garrett and Luke McKnight, Chuck Berry covers, and the 1927 Bristol Sessions fiddle Jesse brought back to the stage