Clear Lake resident, realtor and musician, Tina Mock, will be inducted into the Iowa Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Arnolds Park on Labor Day weekend. The Hall of Fame recognizes those who have played a significant role in popular music through the years. This will be the 27th year for the ceremony.
Although being inducted in the individual category, Tina said she has always been part of a group, which for the past nine years has been a husband and wife duo known as, The Mockingbirds. Her husband, Rich, was inducted into the Iowa Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in 2018. They weren’t inducted as a duo because, “You have to have been playing for 25 years,” Tina said, and Rich just happened to have had 10 more years under his belt.
Music seems to have always been in Tina’s blood. “I’ve been playing piano since I was six. And I played trumpet. I did that kind of stuff, like all the school things. I was actually at Maestro Singers Camp at Wartburg. It’s like an honor choir thing they did. I was super into opera. So I was there at camp and my aunt and my mom came and stole me from camp,” Tina said with a wry smile. She said they took her to Charles City to meet some members of a band that needed a singer and she was hired on the spot.
That first band, Stone Cold Country, played a lot of gigs at the VFW and Moose Lodge as well as other types of venues in and around the Charles City area. “When I started playing in the band they only paid me $20 a night because I didn’t play an instrument. So I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll learn to play an instrument,’” Tina said. “I dug out one of my grandpa’s old guitars and learned how to play guitar. I started playing with the band on a nylon string acoustic guitar, because I wasn’t confident enough yet to plug in. But it was still really good practice, you know, and the guys in the band would give me pointers. And then the rest is history.”
Rich said he met Tina while her band was playing at one of those lodge venues. “She was yodeling ‘The Cowboy Sweetheart,’ (a Patsy Montana song from 1935) and I just loved that,” he said.
As a couple they lived in Nashville, Tenn. before moving to Forest City, Iowa in the 1980s where they started singing together.
“Rich and I would do a little duo stuff together and we’re still kind of feeling things out,” Tina said. She said she would swap instruments, drum, bass or guitar, to his guitar playing until they found the right sound. They started The Mockingbirds in 2015, and now their 21-year-old son, Elijah, is their drummer.
The family, which also includes Clear Lake Middle School daughter, Georgia, moved to Clear Lake in 2013 and Tina is a realtor with Lakeside Brokers.
The Mockingbirds are always making music somewhere around the area, so check them on Facebook to find out where and when.
