A rootsy folk trio will bring its striking string tunes to Diamond Valley this Saturday.
The Lonesome Ace Stringband, playing in the Beneath the Arch series at the Flare n’ Derrick on April 29, plucks a jig around the roots of folk music with unique instrumentals.
“So it’s banjo, fiddle and bass, which is actually a pretty unique trio combo, it’s not something you see a whole lot of, but it’s interesting,” said Chris Coole, who plays banjo alongside John Snowman on fiddle and Max Malone on bass.
The combination, he explained, gives each of the players some elbow room to shine.
“We loved it right from the beginning because it’s not having the guitar in there,” he said. “Each instrument really had its own space, like bass is on the bottom, the banjo’s on the middle, and the fiddle is up high.
“None of the instruments compete with each other for the tonal space, so everything comes out very clearly in that way and there’s just a natural sparseness to having a trio.”
Covering a lot of ground, Coole said the band's sound goes back farther than bluegrass.
“Most people think of us as an old-time band, so old-time Appalachian style, but we definitely have some modern bluegrass elements,” Coole said.
“I like to say we’re an old-time band with bluegrass credentials that plays folk music.”
While he said they don’t consider themselves a Celtic band, he pointed out almost all roads lead back to it.
“The interesting thing is that Celtic is at the roots of all that, like American-Appalachian music is really just Celtic music, and then there’s African-American influences too,” he said.
The three have been sharing a stage since as far back as 2001, when they were part of a five-piece band.
“The three of us really liked playing old-time music, and when we got a chance, we would be doing that,” Coole said. “We got a gig at this place called the Dakota Tavern in Toronto that had just opened, and they wanted to do this bluegrass brunch, and the gig didn’t pay enough for a five-piece band, so we were just like, ‘OK, let’s do this as a trio.’”
This sparked their inspiration to strike out with their current combination, where although Coole was first and foremost a banjo player, he was usually on guitar.
“When we first started I actually played as much guitar as banjo, but then it just sort of melded into me playing banjo,” Coole said.
The last album Lively Times was released in 2019, but the band will be releasing another in the fall, and the audience will get a taste of it Saturday.
“This is our first completely original album and definitely leans more towards the Americana stuff, but we also just have some straight out raging fiddle tunes on it,” Coole said. “We’ve got drums on a few tracks – that's the first time we’ve had that and we’ve got a pedal steel on a couple tracks.
“Just really sparse, like we added some things, different instruments and backup instruments."
The show starts at 7:30 p.m. with doors open at 7 p.m. For tickets and information visit beneaththearch.ca/concerts.
