The Reno Brothers

The Reno Brothers — Ronnie, Dale, and Don Wayne — were the sons of legendary banjo picker Don Reno; like their father, they focused their careers on string band and bluegrass music. Ronnie entered the music business around 1956, playing mandolin with his dad and Red Smiley on Roanoke, Virginia's Top o' the Mornin' TV show. Ronnie and his father kept hosting the show after Smiley left, and during the late '60s, he began playing bass with the Osborne Brothers. He remained with the Osbornes through the early '70s and then became the frontman for Merle Haggard's Strangers. Reno made his first solo entry on the charts in 1983 with "Homemade Love," three years after making his feature film debut in the Clint Eastwood film Bronco Billy. While Ronnie was forging his own career, his brothers joined their dad's Tennessee Cut-Ups and played with them long after he and his partner Bill Harrell split in the mid-'70s. The brothers finally came together after their father died in 1984 to play music that was a cross between bluegrass and country. Their first recordings included their cover of "Yonder Comes a Freight Train" and "Love Will Never Be the Same." The trio also began hosting a regular TV show for the Americana cable network in 1993, which in its day was the only nationally broadcast television program to focus on bluegrass music.