People everywhere have always made music. But because of their isolation, rural Americans tended to make music mostly with their kinfolk. It's not surprising that many of the pioneers of commercial country music were family members - Carters, Stonemans, Mainers and Monroes, among others. Then, just as rural musicians were emerging from their isolation, technology in the form of radio began to penetrate the hills, plateaus and piedmonts of the Southeast. The twain intersected, and live music aired on local stations in 15-minute segments that began with the rooster's crow and accompanied farm folks through their daily chores.

Music in the air. What a concept!

Often as not, the performers were brothers, their musical teamwork the product of habit and familiarity. "Brother duets" were a prevailing format in 1930s, '40s, and into the '50s, practiced by now-legendary twosomes on radio stations and stage shows throughout the countryside.

The Sky Blue Boys - Banjo Dan and Willy Lindner - being genetically qualified, have revived the tradition. Their name itself is a tribute to one of the greatest of those duos of the past: the Blue Sky Boys (Bill and Earl Bolick). Veterans of the Vermont-based bluegrass band, Banjo Dan and the Midnite Plowboys, Dan and Willy bring respect and a sense of adventure to the brother-duo format. Their repertoire runs from the traditional to the (quasi) modern and the original.

But always, in their minds, are those brothers (and some sisters, too) of an earlier time, who first put the music in the air, where a couple of little sky blue boys got to hear it.