O, what will a man give in exchange for his soul? An unlikely friendship between a black fugitive from the law and a white fugitive from an abusive home changes their lives, their fortunes, and the foundations of country music. When Isaiah and A.D. are forced to flee their jobs as janitors at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, they embark on a search for the songs and the men and women who have created them or kept them alive through trial and tribulation. As they delve deeper and deeper into the peaks and valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountains, their fame and wealth grows even as Isaiah's family haunts him and A.D.'s obsession with "the names" of the musicians they seek threatens to destroy them both.