ATHABASCA – It’s sure to be another exciting night of live music at the Nancy Appleby Theatre on Friday, April 21 when The Lonesome Ace Stringband comes to town as part of their Prairie and Mountain Tour.
The Toronto-based trio are the third act in the Heartwood Folk Club’s spring season, although this is the second stop on a tour that will take them all over Alberta, and into southern B.C.
As noted on their website, the Aces are “an old-time band with bluegrass credentials playing some righteous Americana music.”
This season of the Heartwood Folk Club has been the brainchild of their new musical director, Charlie DeShane, who said that he tried to mix up the sounds as much as he could.
The Aces are the latest attempt at mixing things up; the group, which consists of Chris Coole on the banjo, John Showman on the fiddle, and Max Malone on the bass, “calls out to the part of your brain that wishes the frontier still exists."
The three men take turns providing vocals on songs, allowing each tune to have its own unique sound and feel.
According to their website, the Aces attribute a lot of their success to their humble roots; the seven years they spent as the house band at the iconic Dakota Tavern in Toronto allowed them to perfect their on-stage aura and hone their chemistry as an act, before ever touring or entering the recording studio.
After they emerged from their residency, the band started to tour and record, releasing their first of five albums, Old Time, in 2014.
Over the ensuing nine years, the group has become a staple at music festivals, playing shows at events like the Vancouver Folk Festival, Merlefest in North Carolina, and Gooikorts in Gooik, Belgium.
As always, tickets for the show will be available at Value Drug Mart or at Whispering Hills Fuel, and the doors will open at 7:30 p.m., with one intermission halfway through.
