The members of Blue Holler pose for a photograph. From left are Marshall Roberts on mandolin, Brandon Gandy on banjo, Brandon Taylor on guitar, Skylar Gandy on fiddle and Seabie Ewer on bass.

Ketch Secor, lead singer and banjo player for Old Crow Medicine Show, once said that bluegrass music is a “virtuostic form” that is “older, rawer, and purer” than other types of music. It’s a high lonesome sound, mysterious, haunting, crossing the ridges and valleys of the Appalachian Mountains. It’s in the rasp of Ralph Stanley’s voice, the speed of Earl Scruggs’s fingers, and the breathy beauty of Alison Krauss’s lilting voice.

And it’s in Blue Holler, south Georgia’s premier bluegrass band, which was inducted into the Georgia Country Music Hall of Fame last year.

Bluegrass’s origins lie in the fiddle jigs of 18th-century Scottish immigrants, who brought their ballads across the Atlantic and settled in the Appalachians, only to hear the music come down from those mountains in the 1940s with Bill Monroe.

Since those early days, bluegrass has evolved into a varied musical genre that runs the gamut from indie folk bands like the Avett Brothers and Mumford and Sons to improvisational “jam bands” like Leftover Salmon and Grammy Award winner Billy Strings. It transcends race with newer groups like the all-black bluegrass trio the Carolina Chocolate Drops. and it crosses generation gaps with younger audiences who are drawn to the honesty of the words and the uniqueness of the sound.

But it’s the traditional bands like Blue Holler that hold on to the the form’s past while reimagining what bluegrass could be.

Bass player and Moutrie native Seabie Ewer, already an individual member of both the Georgia and Atlanta Country Music Halls of Fame, said, “It is a great honor to get the entire band name in there because of our dedication to this area and the commitment we have to south Georgia. It’s quite an honor for the entire band to be recognized for the raw talent our band members have.”

Blue Holler formed in 2004 out of a group that met regularly and informally to play bluegrass. “It was just some friends who jammed together once a week at somebody’s house where various and sundry people would show up,” said Ewer. “Five us said, ‘Why don’t we get together and play some?’”

According to Ewer, the name came from one of the original band members. “We were struggling with the name one night at rehearsals, throwing around 10 to 12 names, and one of the guys threw out Blue Holler,” said Ewer, who said the band’s name is a tribute to the music’s mountainous origins: Blue for bluegrass and Holler for the Appalachian pronunciation of hollow, a valley.

Blue Holler has had several lineups since its inception as its members moved away or were unable to play. Currently, the band features Ewer on bass, Brandon Gandy of Tifton on banjo, Skylar Gandy of Valdosta on fiddle, Marshall Roberts of Tallahassee on mandolin, and Brandon Taylor of Valdosta on guitar. Ewer is the only original member of the band.

Ewer called the the current iteration “the best configuration of the band we’ve ever had.” The band’s success, he said, comes from the individual talent and work ethic of its members. “Each person excels in their instrument from pure practice and stage exposure,” said Ewer, describing their approach to their craft as meticulous. “Everyone is very dedicated to their skill and pushes themselves.”

He estimated they have played more than 400 shows together and have spent countless hours in rehearsal, which has honed their ability to play as a unit.

“No one tries to stand out or showboat, even though each player could showboat anytime,” said Ewer. “We’re likeminded, good friends who respect each other’s talents and abilities, and we try to play together.”

They are also bound by a sense of pride in their craft. “We don’t come across as being competitive, but we are,” said Ewer with a laugh. “We have a humble attitude, but we strive to be the best band at any venue we play without acting like it.”

That competitive nature served them well when they placed sixth at the prestigious 37th Annual International Band Competition hosted by the Society for Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America in Nashville, Tenn., in 2020.

Ewer said each band member spends time each week studying music in order to pattern their material after musicians they respect, listing names like Earl Scruggs, Sammy Shelor, Adam Steffey, Kenny Smith, Tony Rice, and Mark Schatz.

They all share in the creative process, Ewer said, and it typically starts with the guitar and vocals. “Somebody will bring that song to the group and basically audition it,” he said. “Everybody will start thinking about what they can do to add value to that song.”

The band arranges where they believe the lead breaks will go for each instrument before going home to work on the arrangement separately. “Everyone spends time wood-shedding their part and perfecting the lead breaks they want to play, and we start adding from there,” said Ewer. All rehearsals are recorded at Ewer’s home studio, and the band members use the recordings almost like an athlete would use game film to determine areas of strength and weakness in each arrangement.

The result of this “creation by committee” is a merging of different styles. “Different writers bring different types of songs,” Ewer said. “Everybody has a different writing style.”

While the band focuses on traditional bluegrass, their sound is difficult to label. Their latest album runs the the gamut from traditional sounds like “Backside of the Mountain” with its Flatt-and-Scruggs banjo rolls to the more frenetic “Last Resort,” which shares more in common with contemporary bluegrass bands. There is a Southern-Gospel-meets-bluegrass rendition of “Have a Little Talk with Jesus,” a lyrically dark song called “Blue Holler Ran Red” — and “Rest,” which vocally has a Contemporary Christian music feel not found in traditional bluegrass.

Ewer said this mixing of styles is intentional.

“We try to have a variety of different styles of music, try to mix up things to have something everyone would like,” he said. As a result, their performances showcase a combination of original songs, traditional bluegrass hits by legends like Jimmy Martin and Bill Monroe, gospel songs, and bluegrass covers of artists like Etta James and Otis Redding.

“Younger people seem to like a more modern style, almost Americana,” said Ewer. “It’s fun for us to take these other songs and try to put them in a bluegrass format.”

Ewer said the band appeals to every age group. “We have several teenage followers around Moultrie who saw us at church,” he said. “It’s encouraging to see young people who grasp acoustic music and like it and hopefully will listen to more.”

Bluegrass is a unique musical style, Ewer said, because of the technical difficulty required by the precision and speed of the music. “It’s a lot more difficult to play than people who have never tried to play it might think,” he said.

Its simplicity and stripped-down sound adds to that difficulty.

“You’re just standing with an acoustic instrument in front of a microphone with no reverb, distoration, or amplifier, just you and the instrument,” said Ewer. “You feel kind of naked with an acoustic instrument and microphone when you don’t have all of the electronics to hide behind.”

Ewer’s life has been soaked in music. He said he started singing at church when he was six or seven years old. He remembers his church’s song leader taking him to perform gospel music at the company Christmas parties of Penny’s and Sears.

He didn’t begin to play guitar until he was a high schooler in Calvary Baptist Church’s youth group. His first guitar was a $12 model from Woolsworth. The next year, he bought his first electric.

Ewer said he played in a few bands in high school, noting performances at the youth center after football games where they played songs from bands like The Bee Gees and Grand Funk Railroad. “We just played whatever was on the radio at the time, whatever was popular in the early ’70s,” Ewer said.

His ear was first attracted to bluegrass while in high school when he heard the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1972 album “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” which featured bluegrass luminaries like Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, Norman Blake, Jimmy Martin, and Vassar Clements.

Ewer graduated from Moultrie High School in 1974 and headed to Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, where he met the members of the ABAC bluegrass band, who allowed him to sit in with them.

“They were from North Carolina and were real bluegrass players,” said Ewer. “In North Carolina you couldn’t throw a rock and not hit a really good banjo player.”

He continued to play mostly cover music in what he described as “dance bands,” performing at events like the Miller Brewing Company’s family picnic and the Sunbelt Ag Expo. He even opened for The Commodores when they came to Albany. “It was the first time we ever had someone tote our equipment for us,” Ewer said with a laugh.

He has been playing with different bands and as a session musician ever since. One highlight came when he was invited to play with Bobby Hicks, the longtime fiddle player for Ricky Skaggs and a legend in his own right, when Hicks came to play a show in the area and needed some musicians to fill out the band for the evening.

“They called and asked me to play the bass, and I said, ‘No, do you know who he is? He’s played Carnegie Hall and the Grand Ole Opry,’” Ewer overcame his initial hesitancy and met with Hicks to rehearse. “He liked what I did and wanted me to come back, but the last thing I wanted to be the one who messed up the show.”

Ewer said he went home with the lead sheet for each song on the setlist, listened to Hicks’s songs on repeat, and played each one over and over.

“It took me a night and half to learn these songs, but it was pretty neat to get to play a show with someone of the caliber of Bobby Hicks,” said Ewer. “It was one of the highlights of my whole life to play with someone like that and for him to feel like I could do the job.”

Two venues stand out in Ewer’s memory as favorite places to play. The first was the Monticello Opera House, a historic theater in downtown Monticello, Fla., which was finished in 1890. “It was just an awesome venue to play,” Ewer said.

The second was Randy’s Old-Time Pickin’ Palace, a 110-seat performance hall in Bloomingdale, Ga., near Savannah, that has become legendary in bluegrass circles.

“It’s a small venue, intimate, upclose. But they get bigtime, name-brand bands to come to play,” said Ewer. “I don’t know how in the world they got to us.”

His career hasn’t been all highlights. Ewer recalled a performance at the Holiday Hills Music Park’s Bluegrass Festival in Laurel Hill, Fla., when he found himself unable to play.

“We were playing the next to last song, and all of a sudden I got a terrible cramp in my left hand,” said Ewer, who found himself nearly unable to finish the song. Ewer said Blue Holler guitarist Brandon Gandy, a medical professional, looked at him and thought he might be having a stroke. “We finished, and I said, ‘Boys, we are going to have to do something a capella,’ so we ended the show with an a capella number,” Ewer said.

The band is currently working on a new gospel album and looking to book some bigger venues.

“We keep getting our name out there,” said Ewer. “People who have never seen us play live are calling because they heard us on YouTube or somewhere like that.”

As for advice for young musicians, Ewer said passion and perseverance are the keys to success. “You’ve got to want to play,” said Ewer. “You can’t have your parents push you to do it.”

Ewer also recommended finding likeminded musicians like he has now with Blue Holler. “Play with people,” he said. “Always strive to play with people who are better than you are.”

He is grateful for opportunities to play locally.

“For a long time we didn’t get to play here very often because people didn’t know who we were or what we did,” Ewer said. “Getting to play in my hometown means a lot.”

For more information on Blue Holler, visit the band’s website at http://www.bluehollerband.com or email Seabie Ewer at seabieewer@gmail.com.

Hall of Fame

nominations

due Aug. 1

Nominations for the Georgia Country Music Hall of Fame’s Class of 2023 must be turned in by Aug. 1. An application is posted to the Facebook page of the Georgia Country Music Hall of Fame.