Hearing Mountain Heart play its progressive take on bluegrass, it's hard not to notice the rock-solid banjo work that band leader Barry Abernathy . . . surprising. Abernathy's left hand, the fretting hand, has only a thumb and part of an index finger -- "the nub," he and his friends jokingly call it.

I thought I had seen and heard the very best ensembles that bluegrass had to offer. Then I heard Mountain Heart. These guys blew my doors off. Great . . . edge and Steffey’s unique vocal delivery is quintessential old-timey bluegrass, done with the taste and finesse that is all Mountain Heart.