This chapter explores downhome virtuosity in early country music radio programs of the 1930s. Drawing on program recordings, scripts, listener letters, trade press, and business documents, I demonstrate how these programs presented performers as skilled yet humble, often intentionally contrasting them with the European art music tradition with which virtuosity is typically equated. Although they avoid the use of the term “virtuosity,” these programs construct this phenomenon as a vernacular example of American work ethic fit for domestic consumption. The passive-voice definition of virtuosity as “skill made apparent” leaves the question of agency perpetually open, and approaching the issue of downhome virtuosity through the materials of a radio broadcaster and program creator (John Lair) further undercuts the temptation to prioritize the performer’s role in virtuosity. The musicians and their performances were certainly important, but Lair’s framing of them, radio’s mediation, and audience reception are just as central to the construction of downhome virtuosity in the overtly commercial context of sponsored variety programs, downhome virtuosity navigated the complex values of rural identity through the modern wonder of radio.