Stockdale Family Band to celebrate 10-year anniversary places 1st in Heights Got Talent Contest
April 3, 2015
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The Stockdale Family Band was born out of a family homestead 10 years ago, where father and sons spent kitchen and farm chore time together singing their favorite songs and honing their harmonies.
James Stockdale, the youngest, started on the bucket bass, a five-gallon bucket with a broomstick handle and Weed eater string. He was 8 years old when Calvin Stockdale, the oldest, was 16. Back then the boys placed first in a local talent show and came home from the competition enthused that people liked their bluegrass style of music and insisted that their dad form a band with them.
Ten years later the band has earned first place in four regional band contests and second place in both the national Single Mic Championship and Youth in Bluegrass band contests, including their most recent 2014 first place in the Heights Got Talent Contest in Cleveland Heights. The Stockdale men are especially suited for stage performance, as their affection for people and enthusiasm for traditional acoustic music is infectious to audiences.
A Stockdale Family Band show entertains with music and also with lively farm tales and comedy. The band keeps the audience engaged when they sing around a single microphone that requires an elaborate bluegrass ballet. Watching that ballet is one of the visual rewards reminiscent of early performances of Bill Monroe, Stanley Brothers and Flatt and Scruggs using a single microphone.
Bluegrass vocal harmonies often work best when all the singers can look each other in the eye and catch facial movements. Using a single microphone really helps their interaction and creates a unique performance.
Some readers may recognize the Stockdales from their past appearance on ABC-TVs reality series Wife Swap in 2008. The band also plays as a house band for Amish Country Theater Comedy Shows in Walnut Creek and has released four CDs.
Jacob Stockdale is an Ohio Grand Fiddle Champion and teaches private lessons in fiddle, mandolin and guitar. Last year he was a featured soloist with the Tuscarawas Philharmonic Country Classic Concert.
The next show is the seventh annual Stockdale Family Band Bluegrass and Gospel Show Saturday, April 18 from 7-9 p.m. at the Amish Country Theater located at 3149 state Route 39 in Walnut Creek. Doors open at 6:15 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at www.stockdalefamilyband.com or by calling 330-756-0162. Presale tickets are $13 or $18 at the door the day of the show.
