Their Story
Group leader and founder Eric Vertrees left the road at the end of 2001 after the retirement of “The Veterans”, the quartet that he travelled with for 17 years singing the lead part.
After staying out of singing for about a year, Eric felt the call to return to song ministry and soon he, his sister Shelia, and wife Cheryl started singing in their home church. In early 2003, they formed Family Legacy and started traveling to other churches and events to sing.
In 2004, they recorded their first CD, entitled “Family Legacy”, and expanded their ministry outreach. Later in 2005, they won the Sogospelnews Fanfest Talent Search, and subsequently performed on the main stage of Fanfest with groups such as The Imperials, Mercy’s Mark, and Kirk Talley.
In 2006, they recorded their second CD, entitled “Are You Ready to Go”, which contained three singles that were released to radio. Family Legacy was played in many markets across the country, and they further expanded their outreach.
In 2008 Eric and Shelia lost their brother to a stroke. He was born with Down’s syndrome, and a very special guy. The doctors told Mom and Dad that he would be fortunate to live to be 7, but he lived to the age of 48. His passing left a big gap in our lives. Then, in 2011, their mother passed away, leaving their dad alone. Also, during this time, Shelia’s health started to decline some, which prompted Family Legacy to cut back somewhat on their travel. In 2016, their father passed away, which left another hole in the family. However, God’s grace has continued to see them through.
The year 2017 brought new challenges and opportunities to Family Legacy. Shelia continued to battle her health issues, but seemed to be getting better. The group spent the most of the year working on a new recording, the first since 2006, and teamed up with Robb Tripp to produce it. Eric was inspired to write several songs for this project, which was a first for him. Between he and his dear friend and co-writer Robin Milby, seven of the eleven songs were written. Shortly after the CD was completed and in post production, Shelia became sick and suddenly passed away. This sudden passing presented the hardest trial that Family Legacy has faced to date, but Eric and the family felt the calling even stronger to continue the singing ministry. Eric and Cheryl’s son, Matthew, who had been singing bass, moved up to the baritone position and they are continuing on as a trio.
In 2018, Family Legacy released their first single from the project Sounds of Faith, Home and Family, a song titled “Faith Is All You Need” and the very first song written solely by Eric. The song charted at #66 on the Singing News Top 80, and the group followed that up with four other singles and enjoyed further charting action.
Another single, “Devil’s a Liar”, charted as high as #61 on The Singing News Top 80.
Family Legacy has just recorded their fourth CD titled “Living the Good Life” and they feel it is their strongest effort to date. All twelve songs were written by Eric and/or his friend and partner Robin Milby.
The family’s desire is to minister through song as long as God allows them to do so.
Get to know Family Legacy’s Singers
Eric Vertrees
Eric is the founder and manager of Family Legacy. He has a long history in gospel music. He began his singing ministry with his dad’s group, first playing bass guitar occasionally, and later moving into the baritone position after the former baritone resigned from the group. He was fourteen years old at the time, but he soon realized that this was his calling, and he has continued singing for the last 39 years.
Seventeen of those years he spent as lead singer for “The Veterans Quartet”, a popular group in the 90s. After years of travelling all over the eastern United States, he came home after “The Veterans” retired, thinking he was probably finished.
Shortly after, however, God had other plans, as Eric’s sister approached him about forming a family group.
After a couple months of rest, Eric gathered his sister and wife one day and they sang a song. He quickly realized that there was a lot of potential in that structure, and soon they were singing special songs at their home church.
It wasn’t long after, in 2003, that they began travelling to other churches and events and they have been going ever since.
Eric says he is enjoying singing with his family and serving the Lord more today than he ever has.
Eric grew up on his family farm and operated it for many years. The family still lives there today, and he still works on the farm as time allows. His hobbies include golf, hunting, and fishing.
Cheryl Vertrees
Cheryl is the wife of Eric, and the mother of Matthew and his brother, Michael. Cheryl spent her formative years singing alto in the church choir of Severns Valley Baptist Church in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, where she also served as a frequent soloist.
In her teenage years, she joined “Blessed Assurance”, a contemporary Christian group from Severns Valley that travelled the region performing for churches and events throughout Kentucky.
She met Eric at Elizabethtown Community College in 1983, where they both performed with the ECC Chorus. They became friends and later started dating and in 1986 were married.
After several years in the workforce and being a quartet wife, Cheryl made the decision to become a stay at home mom and then started singing with Family Legacy.
She is presently filling the alto position with Family Legacy and is blessing people across the land with her rich alto voice. She also fills secretarial duties for the group, and manages the product table.
Her interests include keeping up with Facebook friends, playing games, and spending quality time with her family.
Matthew Vertrees
Matthew is the son of Cheryl and Eric.
Matthew began singing with his family when he was eight years old. He would come up and sing one song with the group, and in 2006, he recorded a song on the “Are You Ready to Go” project.
Later on, when his voice dropped, he began singing bass for the group as his time allowed. Presently, he is filling the baritone position with Family Legacy.
In high school, he was an offensive lineman for his high school football team, and he was highly active in FFA, serving as an officer as well as being on the parliamentary procedure team and speech competition teams.
He was a vocalist in the chorus and a three year member of the chamber singers, an elite group of performers from the chorus, and a two time member of the All State Chorus as well. When he auditioned for All State in his senior year, he scored a perfect 100% on the sight reading portion of the audition.
Later, he attended Elizabethtown Community and Technical College, where he received an Associate Degree in Diesel Technology.
He is married to his high school sweetheart, Amber.
In 2017 he announced his call into the ministry. He is presently enrolled in the Memphis Seminary, where he is pursuing a Program of Alternate Studies pathway to ordination.
Matthew loves hunting, fishing, golf, and watching sports, especially football.
Jonathan Edington
Jonathan met Eric a few years ago when he joined The Heart of Kentucky Men’s Chorus of Elizabethtown, Ky. Eric was singing with this group, which is a barbershop chorus, and he and Jonathan instantly became good friends. Jonathan had recently moved to Elizabethtown and the chorus provided a much-needed outlet to make new friends and sharpen his vocal skills.
Jonathan’s singing career started when he joined his church choir in high school. He was a member of the First Baptist Church of Madisonville, Ky., his hometown. His musical journey started much earlier, however, when he started playing piano and later trumpet at an early age. His trumpet playing continued through high school, where he frequently played in small groups with friends and provided special music by soloing for various churches. He was a member of his high school marching and jazz bands, where he competed in a variety of solo and ensemble contests, winning numerous awards and medals. During this time, he found his lifelong passion for singing when he joined his church’s adult choir, singing tenor and baritone.
After high school, he went to Murray State University where he continued his trumpet studies. While there, he had the blessing of playing lead trumpet in the jazz band, holding principal chair in the orchestra, and principal chair in the wind ensemble. Also, following his passion for singing, he joined the concert choir, singing baritone and bass, and had opportunities to sing in small groups of friends at local churches.
His studies allowed him to travel singing and playing in Switzerland, England, Greece, and Italy in various tours with different school groups.
After his days at Murray State concluded, a friend of Jonathan’s introduced him to southern gospel music, and he instantly fell in love with the quartet style, the soaring harmonies, and the powerful message of the genre. Ever since high school, he had felt the call to music ministry, and thought being a minister of music at a local church was what he was meant to do. Even though he felt the call to music ministry, the path of music ministry in the church just did not seem to work out.
He started really developing his bass voice during this time, and spent a while searching for what God wanted for his life. Then he moved to Elizabethtown, met
Eric, and found out that Eric had a family singing group, Family Legacy.
After the group experienced changes, and through conversations where Eric learned of Jonathan’s burning desire to sing, Eric invited Jonathan to try out with the group in 2020. Jonathan has now found his calling and place in the ministry of music.
In his spare time, Jonathan loves to hunt, fish, camp, and restore old John Deere tractors.