Patricia Jekel
Patricia Jekel is the music wizard of the band - she's got a degree in music, plays and teaches classical piano, and is a flute player for the Lake County Symphony. She started playing the fiddle as an adult, after years of listening to Dock lament about how much he wanted a fiddler to play with. Like Dock, she learns from listening to the “masters” of the old time style. “It’s a great balance for me – completely different from my classical background of reading music. I love the freedom, the simplicity, the soul of this music.” She plays the fiddle fast and "straight ahead" so that no one can sit still! As a fan of country style dancing, like contra dance and square dance, she loves nothing more than to play lively, danceable music – and now and then just can’t help but jump down off the stage to dance along!
"Dock" Jekel
"Dock" Jekel, plays claw-hammer banjo, fiddle, and is the main vocalist of the band. He's been singing and playing old-time music on the banjo for longer than just about anyone can remember. His banjo sound is 100% barn burnin' good fun. It’s fast and clear, and full of interesting, syncopated rhythms- sounds which transport your imagination to an impossibly rural porch, somewhere in the rural southern Appalachian Mountains. As a native Californian, Dock’s method of learning the old time banjo has been to listen obsessively to ancient “County Records” recordings from way before he was born.
Scott Serena
Scott plays Guitar and Mandolin for the band. Scott’s earliest musical influences were folk standards like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and of course, a young Bob Dylan. Scott learned to play with a chord chart and a Bob Dylan songbook. Events (job, mortgage, marriage, children) conspired to keep him away from music for several years. After a long hiatus Scott came back to music in 2005 while listening to jam sessions in the local coffee shop. Inspired by the energy of live music and the spontaneity of the informal group setting he brushed off his guitar and started playing again. Scott met the Jekels at an open mic in Cobb and was captivated by the simple and archetypical sound. He offered to sit in on a session with them. They said yes, and it has been a long session so far.
Tamsen Nash
Tamsen Nash adds a mix of traditional folk rhythms to the group, such as autoharp, washtub bass, and washboard, as well as “clog dolls” and “bones.” She’s game to try just about anything that makes an interesting sound and gets people dancing! Occasionally she gets carried away by the music and breaks into “tapclogging”, her version of classic tap and traditional clogging! Tamsen’s real passion is singing, specializing in harmony throughout her life in folk groups, acappella and madrigals, musical theater, The Konocti Fiddlers and The Cobb Stompers. Although she laughs and says she has the least technical talent of the group, she thinks she has the most fun and gets the most attention especially when she is playing that little horse clog doll!
John Jennings
John Jennings is a multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter who has been playing music for over 50 years. A veteran of rock, country, and electronica, he has returned to his roots with the music of the Cobb Stompers, and plays the baritone guitar and stand-up bass. A resident of Cobb Mountain since 1973, he and his children and grandchildren all live within 10 minutes of each other. He has an M.F.A. in painting, and worked in the geothermal fields for 30 years. He currently performs as a solo artist, as a duo with his granddaughter, Cheyenne Emerson, as well as with the Cobb Stompers.
"Music for hoedowns, shindigs,
and hootenannies"
Phone: (707) 987-1198 E-mail: doctorjekel@gmail.com
