Wade Mainer helped originate the two-finger banjo picking style that bridged old-time string-band music and modern bluegrass, first with his brother J.E. Mainer's Mountaineers and then, from 1936, fronting his own group, the Sons of the Mountaineers. His syncopated picking and high, lonesome harmonies — heard on hits like 1939's 'Sparkling Blue Eyes' — were absorbed directly by the next generation of pickers, and Ralph Stanley named Mainer's style as the foundation the 'Stanley style' banjo grew out of.

the sound in question

1939

Sparkling Blue EyesWade Mainer