- Jimmy Martin — Lead Vocals, Guitar
- Bobby Osborne — High Baritone Vocals, Mandolin
- Charlie Cline — Banjo
- "Curly" Ray Cline — Fiddle
- Ralph “Little Robert” Guenther — Bass
- Sonny Osborne — Tenor Vocals
“20/20 Vision (And Walking Around Blind)” is a heartbreak song written by Joe Allison and Milton Estes. The country singer and film cowboy Gene Autry made the first recording in May 1954, and the song circulated quickly through country and, soon after, bluegrass acts.
The title turns on a small, durable irony: the narrator has perfect eyesight yet failed to see what was in front of him, walking “around blind” while the love he took for granted slipped away. That neat conceit, set to a simple, singable melody, made the song a natural for close harmony treatment.
It entered the bluegrass repertoire almost immediately. Jimmy Martin and the Osborne Brothers, whose brief but influential partnership produced a celebrated body of trio singing, recorded it in November 1954, only months after Autry’s release. The song has remained a standard for harmony-minded bluegrass groups ever since.