Stone Walls and Steel Bars video from Lonesome Ace Stringband – Bluegrass Today Skip to content

Toronto’s Lonesome Ace Stringband is a trio that truly defies description. Driven by Chris Coole’s clawhammer banjo, you might be tempted to call them an old time group, but they feature a good bit of bluegrass music in their show. There is clearly a love and deep understanding of the folk traditions of Appalachia, but this is three Canadian boys with long experience with bands in that country.

Their own characterization of themselves seems to hit it just right – an old-time band with bluegrass chops that play some righteous folk and country music. Just like that.

We first got a good look at these Lonesome Aces during their showcase performance for the 2020 IBMA World of Bluegrass, hosted virtually last year owing to widespread pandemic restrictions. With all the showcase artists having to submit a set on video, we saw a good bit of disparity in the quality of the presentations. Some were no more than the artists sitting in their living rooms absent any special lighting, to fairly complex set ups in a studio environment. But none held our attention like the riveting and often haunting show put on by Chris Coole, John Showman (fiddle), and Max Heineman (bass), The Lonesome Ace Stringband.

This month a live album from that set, recorded at the Anza Club in Vancouver, BC in 2019, will be released, titled, appropriately enough, Lively Times – Live at the Anza Club!

The album doesn’t release until later this month, but a teaser video is available today, their take on an absolute classic from the repertoire of The Stanley Brothers, Stone Walls and Steel Bars, a prison song delivered by a man on death row, waiting for his final sentence.

Coole says that this is one of his favorites.

“Apart from Carter’s chilling delivery, I’ve always been drawn to this song for its ability to paint such a vivid story with so few words. It almost feels like you’re watching a movie (in Technicolor).

To me, the killer lines are at the beginning of each verse… ‘Jealousy has took my young life, all for the love of another man’s wife’ and ‘Grey-haired warden, deep ‘Frisco Bay, Guards all around me, leading the way.’ 26 words, and you can see the whole thing from beginning to end!”

Have a look/listen…

Pre-orders for Lively Times – Live at the Anza Club! are enabled now online ahead of its November 26 release date.

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Tuesday saw Billy Strings release the second part of the video series String The Halls: Home For The Holidays Edition with a cover of “Stone Walls and Steel Bars”. This cover of The Stanley Brothers joins yesterday’s rendition of Think What You Did.

Strings and Company continue to collect money for Musically fed, Nashville rescue mission, and Second harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennesseethe format of the 12-day series has taken a certain shape. With strings – born William Apostal– Along with its backing band, the ensemble adopts bluegrass standards in a traditional format packaged in a vintage television set. Today 120 more posters were published by Half Hazard Pressand fans can use the “STANBROS” access code to get one.

See Also: Watch Sam Bush and Billy Strings Cover Doc Watson’s Walk On Boy [Video]

With another selection by Stanley Brothers released in October 1963, Strings shows that this will be a traditional series of videos. While this is only the second of 12 releases, so far it seems like these videos shed some light on improvisation and focused more on the basics of bluegrass. Strings, however, nodded to the legion of followers whom he seduced with his jamming skills when his button-down shirt dons a Thankfully dead Stealie in the lower left corner. In contrast to the release on Monday, this video shows a color that, unlike yesterday’s black and white clip, may signal a push towards the modern millennia.

Watch Billy Strings and Company perform Stone Walls and Steel Bars by The Stanley Brothers on day two of the String The Halls: Home For The Holidays Edition video series.

Billy Strings – “Stone Walls and Steel Bars” (The Stanley Brothers)

[Video: Billy Strings]

Billy Strings led his band through Stone Walls & Steel Bars for the second part of his charity fundraising video series, String The Halls: Home For The Holidays Edition. “Stone Walls & Steel Bars” was written by Ray Pennington and Roy Marcum and first recorded in 1963 by The Stanley Brothers.

Strings’ band finds the guitarist supported by Royal Masat, Mandolinist Jarrod Walker and banjo players Billy fails. The issue of String The Halls: Home For The Holidays runs until Christmas Day. At that time, audio from all 12 performances will be available through nugs.net.

Billy Strings and Company presented their rendition of “Stone Walls & Steel Bars” on April 18, 2019 in Asheville as part of the Phantasy Tour. Strings’ most recent cover of the song was performed during a Family Strings concert on March 1, 2020 in Ann Arbor.

Proceeds from the issue of String The Halls: Home For The Holidays will go to the Nashville Rescue Mission, the Musically Fed, and Middle Tennessee’s Second Harvest Food Bank. Posters are available here with a password given in the video.

Check out the following version of String The Halls of Stone Walls & Steel Bars:

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More String The Halls on JamBase

• Billy Strings announces “String The Halls: Home For The Holidays Edition” series

• 

  Billy Strings launches “String The Halls” with the video “Think about what you’ve done”

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