Labels: branson shows, branson theaters, comedy, family, GG, Shea, vacation

Stafford and family still going strong - Branson Tri-Lakes News Entertainment - Stafford and family still going strong: Entertainment: Jim Stafford recently began his 24th season in Ozark Mountain Country, and according to the famous funnyman, he is looking forward to the next 24.

Labels: branson theaters, comedy, GG, jim stafford, Shea

This review written by Shane Carl came after Jim's recent 2013 performance in Somerset, KY.  Needless to say, we wanted to share it with Jim's fans.  We think Shane is right on!
Jim Stafford packed the house at The Center for Rural Development last Saturday and showed his Somerset fans how show biz is done.

The evening's entertainment was both intimate and expansive, low-key and high energy. A perfect mix of down-to-earth audience interaction and Nashville or Hollywood-level showmanship.

"It was one of the best if not the best show we've had," said Carl Skaggs, director of Cumberland Productions, the Pulaski-based charitable organization which brought Stafford to Somerset. The performance raised nearly six-thousand dollars for the Somerset Christian School's Needs-Based Scholarship Fund.

Stafford,who has delighted millions over the years with his unique brand of music and comedy, brought a piece of Branson, Mo., with him when he and his family performed last weekend. Branson is an entertainment center with a reputation of having some of the best live entertainment in the nation. Stafford, his wife Ann, and children GG and Shea, perform several times a week at the Jim Stafford Theatre in Branson, which Jim and Ann co-own.

Stafford, something of a Rennaisance man in American showbusiness, made a national name for himself in the '70s and '80s as a hit songwriter ("Spiders and Snakes," for example), a televison personality, an actor, an award-winning composer for motion picture soundtracks, a comedian, a
script-writer and a virtuoso multi-instrumentalist.

Jim told his Somerset audience that, about 20 years ago, he longed for a more permanent location to make money doing what he does best - entertaining people. So he and Ann created a family business, The Jim Stafford Theatre, and raised their children, teaching them about the ethics of art and performance and the importance family life.

"I raised my children on the stage," said Jim to the audience at The Center for Rural Development.
And you could sure tell he had worked with his kids since they were little. GG, his sixteen-year-old daughter, and Shea, his twenty-year-old son, both showed a level of virtuosity on the piano that would usually be indicative of artists much older.

In addition, the young performers displayed a top-level professional stage presence which can only be captured by those with a true love for their art. Jim started the whole shebang out last Saturday with just himself and a stool and a few instruments on the otherwise bare stage.

He impressed with some virtuoso picking and then commenced to telling stories and cracking jokes while personally shaking the hands of nearly everyone in the first row or two. The audience was immediately captured in his spell - a down-to-earth southern gent with Hollywood class.

Over the next couple of hours, he held the audience in that spell, right up until the standing ovation at the end - leaving patrons satisfied and at the same time wanting more.

Labels: branson theaters, comedy, family, GG, Shea, tour shows