Donald Wesley Reno (February 21, 1926 – October 16, 1984) was an American bluegrass and country musician, best known as a pioneering banjo and guitar player who partnered with Red Smiley, and later with guitarist Bill Harrell. Life and career Born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, United States, Don Reno grew up on a farm in Haywood County, North Carolina. He began learning acoustic guitar at the age of five after borrowing a neighbors guitar, and not long after began learning banjo. In 1939, the 13-year-old Reno joined the Morris Brothers in performing at a local radio station. He left one year later to join Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith, with whom he would years later record "Feudin' Banjos". In 1943, he received an offer from Bill Monroe to become a member of the Bluegrass Boys, but chose instead to enlist in the United States Army. Trained as a horse soldier at Fort Riley, Kansas, he was sent to the Pacific Theater to fight on foot. He eventually served in Merrill's Marauders and was wounded in action. Influenced by old-time banjo player Snuffy Jenkins and others, Reno developed his own two finger "single-string" style, typically using either his index or middle finger along with his thumb, to pick a single string repeatedly, that allowed him to play scales and complicated fiddle tunes note-for-note. The Reno style encompasses much more than just single-string picking; double-stops, double-time picking, triple-pull offs—all of these, and other techniques make Reno's playing recognizable. According to his son, Don Wayne Reno, "My dad told me more than once that the reason he started his own style of banjo picking was this: When he came out of the service, many people said 'You sound just like Earl Scruggs.' He said that really bothered him considering he never played a banjo while he was in the service, and when he returned to the U.S., he continued to play in the style he had always played before." Reno was also a major pioneer of flatpicking guitar. By 1946 he was regularly performing on the WSPA-FM station out of Spartanburg, South Carolina as a lead guitarist with different groups. Around this time he began giving guitar lessons to Hank Garland, and the two soon did twin guitar performances at the station. During the Reno and Smiley years, Reno would often switch from banjo to guitar especially on gospel songs, and fiddle tunes. One