Hired by Flatt and Scruggs in 1955 to play upright bass, Burkett Howard Graves instead borrowed Earl Scruggs’ three-finger banjo roll, applied it to the resophonic guitar, and permanently changed the sound of bluegrass. This episode follows Uncle Josh from his 1927 birth in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, through professional work at age 15 with the Pierce Brothers in Gatlinburg, years backing Esco Hankins, Mac Wiseman and Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, and a coveted slot on the WWVA Jamboree.

The hosts explain why the Dobro had been stuck in slow Hawaiian-style backing roles, how Graves used hammer-ons, pull-offs and open strings to bypass the drag of the slide bar, and how he won Scruggs’ support for the experiment. They cover his 14 years with the Foggy Mountain Boys, his time with both Lester Flatt’s Nashville Grass and the Earl Scruggs Revue after the 1969 split, his 1974 solo career, his long partnership with fiddler Kenny Baker, the supergroup the Masters with Jesse McReynolds and Eddie Adcock, the 1991 In the Heat of the Night cast Christmas CD, his influence on Jerry Douglas, Mike Auldridge and Phil Leadbetter, his 1997 IBMA Hall of Honor induction, and his death in September 2006.

• The sonic landscape of early bluegrass and why the Dobro was considered a liability
• Grinding through the farm system from Gatlinburg to the WWVA Jamboree
• How a bass player convinced Flatt and Scruggs to let him reinvent the Dobro
• The mechanics of hammer-ons, pull-offs and open strings that unlocked speed
• Serving as the connective tissue between Flatt’s traditionalism and Scruggs’ experiments