Showman & Coole

Showman & Coole

Masters of their trade, Showman and Coole 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 duo's sound is anchored in the fiddle and claw hammer banjo of John Showman and Chris Coole.. The duo 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.

There's a reason why they are a smokin' hot outfit - they've put in their time. In 2007, Lonesome Ace Stringband took up residency in Toronto's legendary Dakota Tavern, routinely playing 10 sets of music every weekend. They went on to spend seven years as the house band before ever taking the show on the road or recording a note. Those years of musical percolation honed them into a group that thinks and plays as one - something that comes from clocking thousands of on-stage hours together. Outside of their trio work, each musician is a veteran of the Canadian music scene, sought after for teaching camps, recording sessions and touring with some of the best artists in North America.

The band's recording journey mirrors the arc of their on-stage evolution. Their early catalogue is anchored in inventive and engaging versions of traditional repertoire punctuated by original compositions. Now with more than a decade of group music-making under their belts, they're releasing their fifth album, a feisty and mighty collection of all-original material titled 'Try To Make It Fly' (October 13, 2023). And much like their seamless live performances where they trade-off lead vocals, each member has brought their songwriting voice to the album.

Their touring has taken them well beyond their Toronto origin. They've become festival favourites at Rockygrass, Celtic Connections, Winnipeg Folk Festival, Merlefest and regularly tour the USA, UK, Germany and, of course, Canada.

Showman and Coole - they are just unorthodox enough to be brilliant.

Recent review

Describing themselves as an "old-time band with bluegrass chops that plays some righteous folk and country music," this virtuosic duo comprises Chris Coole (clawhammer banjo/vocals) and John Showman (fiddle/vocals) – two gentlemen my dear wife describes as "freakishly talented." (For the record and details nerds like me, Coole and Showman are Toronto-based. They are members of the Foggy Hogtown Boys, a powerhouse six-piece that remains the most exciting bluegrass outfit I've seen in my thirteen years here. Additionally, outside of that and this project these guys really get around: I'm only scratching the surface of their live and recorded activities when saying I've also seen Coole play with David Francey; Showman in New Country Rehab, every show they've had a hand in being truly memorable. However, even though LAS already have been a thing for a decade and boast four albums under their belts I'd not previously had a chance to catch them live, so considering everything I'd seen (and heard) the component individuals and their 'main band' deliver to date you'll imagine I was pumped for this show.

The house was packed and true to expectations they delivered two extraordinary 45-minute sets. Mixing bluegrass and country covers with their own fine material, the core of the performance-focused on their snappily titled new album, Modern Old-Time Sounds for the Bluegrass & Folksong Jamboree, with all twelve of its tracks peppering the two sets. An early highlight was a Showman-arranged and sung version of Hazel Dickens' harrowing mining tale, Black Lung. With coal having been discovered here in 1849, Nanaimo pretty much developed out of the mining industry, with the majority of the coal exported to San Francisco. On May 3^rd 1887 a mine explosion here killed 150 miners, so lyrics such as those of Dickens' classic acapella carry great weight in my town.

Another industry (controversially) vital to Vancouver Island's economy is logging, so a rendition of Craig Johnson's logger's lament, Damned Old Piney Mountains, also bore great resonance to this audience when performed in the second set. Otherwise, this breathtaking yet unassuming trio of master bluegrass musicians delivered their takes on songs by the Carter Family (I Will Never Marry); Marty Robbins (Big Iron); (flattop-era) George Jones (Too Much Water) and Gus Cannon and His Jug Stompers (Going to Germany). However, although the set also included an unrecorded Bill Monroe tune, Farewell to Long Hollow (performed, as the Farewell Medley, in a set with Emmett Lundy's Highlander's Farewell), and the Stanley Brothers (Stone Walls and Steel Bars), they are far from preoccupied with foundational bluegrass, also reinterpreting more contemporary material, and from outside the genre. Winnipeg's wonderful singer-songwriter Richard Inman's 2015 track Lake Town Blues received a beautiful treatment, as did Darrin Hacquard's 2017 song, Never Again, segued into by Showman's own Sweetberry Wine, exactly as sequenced on the band's 2018 album, When the Sun Comes Up. The most surprising cover choice of all was Fool's Gold, as "a mature look at infidelity," and originally recorded by Lhasa (de Sela) on her third and final, eponymous album. Tragically, in 2010 and aged just 37, the still revered Lhasa passed away from breast cancer in Montreal, but her gorgeous music lives on.

So, everything that makes bluegrass such a euphoric live experience was delivered by these two incredible musicians in abundance. The level of musicianship, the spine-tingling harmonies and lead vocals were superb. The hoedowns were smokin' hot and the tearjerkers were exactly that. The full house lapped up every joyous second, whooping and hollering as proceedings hit fever pitch when the guys were in full flight, and affording the band a standing ovation when it was all done and dusted. The intimate venue, where audience and performers are so close to each other, is conducive to the promotion of an interactive experience.

Concluding his sales spiel a po-faced Coole said, "Do come say hello. You'll find we are fascinating men to talk to in person."

Fascinating? Probably; brilliant “ definitely.