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 turns in. There are shades of old-school mixed in with the new, with great tone and time.

Those who look a little closer notice something pretty 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.

Abernathy, who was born with the malformation, never let it stop him. To hear him tell it, no one else in his small Georgia hometown paid too much mind.

In fact, growing up in Ellijay, Ga., he was a three-sport all-star. He pitched on the school baseball team and played tight end on the football team, catching passes and blocking.

"It's just something that never bothered me much," said Abernathy, who brings Mountain Heart to FloydFest for three sets on Saturday and Sunday. "As a kid, it just seemed like everything came natural, just like it would for anybody else."

'God-sent'

Abernathy, 40, was 15 when he took up the banjo. He had been interested in music all his life but never thought of playing an instrument until he started watching people playing bluegrass around Ellijay. The banjo struck his fancy.

"I got to noticing it's an open-tuned instrument," he said of the banjo, which typically is tuned to an open G chord, which means there are more open strings available, and not as much left-hand work is required to get at least the basics together.

"Putting two and two together," he said, "I was thinking, I could do this, and I could do that.

"To be honest with you, what little gift I have, I feel like it was God-sent. I feel like the Lord meant for me to do that."

He gravitated toward local banjo players, getting them to show him their licks. Then he would figure out how to do it in his own way.

"It started with just wanting to learn the melody to simple songs, songs I did in church and songs that I'd heard growing up," Abernathy said. "Then it went to trying to figure out some of the Earl Scruggs stuff."

Later, he traveled out of town to learn from banjo master Scott Vestal (Larry Sparks, Doyle Lawson, John Cowan, Sam Bush).

He got gigs with the bands Silver Creek and IIIrd Tyme Out before landing a dream gig in 1994 with his hero, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver. That's where his knowledge really began to grow.

"Doyle's music was a simple music, but there was a lot of perfection in it," he said. "The banjo playing was real tight, and a lot of space between the notes -- real good separation in the timing.

"And I figure, most of your great banjo playing is in your right hand, anyway."

Both Lawson and his bassist, Dale Perry -- also an ace banjo man -- were really helpful, Abernathy said.

"A lot of the stuff I was doing, I was actually approaching it the hard way," he said. "I was trying to still pull it off like other people did. Doyle and Dale got to saying, 'there's other ways of doing things.' "

They showed him some technique tricks that kept him from having to get his left hand to so many different places. He was able to pull off things other banjo players did, while still preserving the traditional sound that hard-core bluegrass fans demand.

"There's something about bluegrass people -- you've got to do it like Scruggs did it, or it ain't right," he said. "And I come from that school, so originally that's how I wanted to do everything."

It worked. In 1997, the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America gave him its Banjo Player of the Year award.

Then, like many sidemen do, he decided to get his own band together. He formed Mountain Heart in 1998. The band began as a traditional outfit. Its sound has changed radically over the past three years, particularly with the addition of onetime Roanoke and Martinsville resident Josh Shilling on vocals, rhythm guitar and piano.

"Our music has evolved to the point where it doesn't really matter," he said. "I don't have to play like Scruggs right now."

New struggles

Abernathy declined to cruise once he got the iconic Scruggs style down. He said that working with such players as Mountain Heart fiddler Jim VanCleve and Shilling has been beneficial. VanCleve was about 17 when he became an original member of Mountain Heart.

"I've probably learned more off of our fiddle player, Jim VanCleve, than anybody," he said. "He don't play a banjo at all, but his approach to music is not limited to bluegrass or rock or country. Jimmy's always said, if you can hum it, then you can play it. ... Work at it till you find it. He's a phenomenal musician.

"I've seen him grow and just really pass me up, big time, as far as musical ability."

In fact, Abernathy describes struggles with his playing as he gets further along in his musical world.

"Understanding more about music makes it harder for you, because you realize there's a lot of stuff you can't do," he said. "There's a whole lot of stuff I can hear, and I know where it's at, and I just can't physically pull it off.

"Early on, it was easier for me than it is right now, because now I'm around better musicians, and I understand more about music, but I can pull off less probably than I ever could, at least it feels that way, anyway."

Shilling said that Abernathy's handicap is of little consequence.

"Working with Barry ... is awesome," Shilling wrote in an e-mail. "Even though he can't physically pull off certain things on instruments due to his handicap, he somehow finds a way to voice the few notes that he needs to blend in with a band using only his left hand.

"This is the case on nearly every instrument, not just banjo. I've seen him chord and chop mandolin, chord and strum guitar and even fool with percussion. His sense of rhythm and tone is outstanding on all of them. His ear for pitch, tone and vocal blend is impeccable. He hears well enough to be able to tell each player what they're doing wrong or what could make what they're doing better even without being able to play or sing the part himself.

"Barry is an intense musician on stage, and I've never seen him get discouraged by his handicap. I actually think it inspires him or drives him in a lot of ways."