Reno and Smiley were an American musical duo that was composed of Don Reno (May 17, 1925 – October 16, 1984) and Red Smiley (February 21, 1925 – January 2, 1972). They were one of the most acclaimed duos in country and bluegrass music in the 1950s and early 1960s. Background Arthur Lee Smiley, Red Smiley, was born in Marshall, NC. Little is known about his early life, but his musical inspiration is said to have surfaced at the age of seven when seeing two hobos playing in Bushnell, North Carolina. By the late 1930s, he was playing on WROL in Knoxville, Tennessee, with guitar being his primary instrument. In 1942, he joined the Army. After he was discharged, he attended diesel mechanic school in Nashville, Tennessee, where he first saw Don Reno playing on the Grand Ole Opry with Bill Monroe. At this time, he was also performing in East Tennessee and western North Carolina. Donald Wesley Reno, Don Reno, was born in Spartanburg, SC, but made his home in Clyde, North Carolina. He was known as a showman, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and composer, although his immediate family was not musical. He was exposed to fiddlers Art Wooten and Tommy Magness through the wife of his older brother Harley, in which she had brothers that had a band. He first picked up the banjo at the age of five and by age eight, he owned a guitar. Reno's musical approach was different than others in bluegrass at the time in that his was more innovative rather than traditional, injecting blues and jazz into his playing. As he wavered between guitar and banjo, he was a star on both. In March 1944, Reno joined the Army and served as company barber in Burma and China. After the war, he operated a grocery store in South Carolina and played jazz and country music at night. In 1948, he heard that Bill Monroe needed a banjo player after Earl Scruggs had left, so he drove to Taylorsville, North Carolina, where he got onstage without invitation and played banjo with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. He stayed with them until 1949, when Reno left the Blue Grass Boys because of an occurrence of malaria and formed the first edition of the Tennessee Cut-Ups in South Carolina with his nephew, Verlon Reno. How they met The two talents met in 1949 while