This week, Toronto, Canada old time trio The Lonesome Ace Stringband recorded live at the Ozark Folk Center State Park during our annual String Band festival. Also, interviews with Lonesome Ace founder and banjo player Chris Coole.

“The Lonesome Ace Stringband bring grit, skill and abandon to Americana music, bridging old-time, bluegrass and folk traditions into a seamless hybrid of original material that is at once fresh and timeless.  The trio’s sound is anchored in the fiddle and clawhammer banjo of John Showman and Chris Coole. They are joined by a rotating cast of extraordinary upright bassists (including founding member Max Malone, James Mceleney, and Lotus Wight). The band moves freely between a sound so commanding it doesn’t seem like it should be coming from a stringband, to a sparse fragility that draws the listener closer.  Whether singing about climate change, modern love, BBQ techniques or life's inevitable existential crises, the band cuts to the core. They can also turn and churn out a tune with so much verve that it will make your heart spin and set the dance floor swirling.”

https://lonesomeace.com/about

In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, OHR producer Jeff Glover offers an archival recording of Ozark original Lisa Wiede singing the cowboy ballad “John Martin Duffy,” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives.

In this week’s guest host segment, renowned traditional folk musician, writer, and step dancer Aubrey Atwater discusses the seafaring song “Jamestown Homeward Bound.”