At (50,000-watt radio station) WLW, Merle met some musicians who became lifelong friends:  bandleader Hank Penny, guitar flat-picker Joe Maphis, and a singing banjoist who used a false mustache and wire spectacles to create the persona of "Grandpa" Jones.  Merle and Grandpa met the acerbic Syd Nathan, a Cincinnati record store owner who’d started his own record company.  Calling themselves "The Sheppard Brothers," Merle and Grandpa were the first to record for Nathan’s now legendary King Records in the fall of 1943.          [Rich Kienzle]