Shellers Barrelhouse Bar
At Shellers Barrelhouse Bar, you can enjoy live music, sip on small-batch bourbon or micro-brewed beer and snack on delicious appetizers while invoking the character of musical legends such as Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Otis Spann and the "Grey Ghost." View schedule for September 2010.
Shellers Barrelhouse Bar is named in honor of two long-ago Texas traditions. The hard-working Texans who spent hours picking up pecans, then shelling those pecans - by hand before any technology was in place - were known as "Shellers." The glass-covered bar in Shellers holds over 40,000 pecans that were gathered during construction of the property. Unshelled, of course.
Shellers also pays tribute to Texas Barrelhouse Blues, a celebrated musical tradition of the early 20th century. A distinctive style of piano playing emerged in Texas' "barrelhouse" bars, named for their beer and whiskey-filled barrels. The toe-tapping "fast western piano" style music, perfect for dancing, had its roots in ragtime and jazz. It soon developed its own personality and became known as Barrelhouse Blues.
One of the legends of vintage Barrelhouse Blues is Bastrop's own Roosevelt Thomas Williams, better known as the "Grey Ghost" (1903-1996). Like many traveling musicians in the early 20th century, Williams caught rides on freight trains, and hopped off to play at carnivals, lumber camps, juke joints and barrelhouse bars. A self-taught musician, Williams once explained, "I plays with my right hand and let the left hand do what it want to."
Inspired by legends and influenced by nature, Shellers' relaxed atmosphere rekindles the barrelhouse tradition with live performances several nights a week.
