The James brothers — Marc, 13, Seth, 10, and Zachary, nine — are winning international praise for their covers of old soul hits.

They call themselves the Melisizwe Brothers and the video of them perfoming 'I'll Be There' by the Jackson 5 in their Sherwood Park home has already garnered 17 million views on Facebook.

This week the trio was featured on the Ellen Degeneres show where they performed and chatted with Degeneres before being surprised with $5,000 in music equipment.

"Everybody was in tears. Everybody was just bawling," said their father, Mark James.

"We were so emotional and crying, but when we looked up there was Ryan Gosling looking at us and he said, 'Great job, awesome'," added the boy's mother, Sherry McDowall.

The brothers are a little more reserved about the performance. They say they weren't nervous to be on the show, but were excited to pick out their musical instruments.

The trio's viral success is leading to attention from producers, writers and record companies.

"We know that lots of writers are reaching out and know that it's going to be really exciting because it's another thing that we're going to be adding to history and we really want to make an impact on the world," Mark James said.

They'll be teaming with producer, Norada Michael Whaden for a few songs, who is known for producing music for R&B and soul artists like Whitney Houston, Al Green and Ray Charles.

James said despite many of the offers, the brothers will record singles with artists and albums, but they won't sign a recording contract just yet.

"We've decided to keep the boys independent artists so they can show up when it's convenient for them and not on a strict schedule," he said. "So they can enjoy what they're doing and that's the bottom line of why we're doing this."

The James brothers are currently home schooled, which helps them to be able to play music and practise up to three hours a day.

Along with music the boys are taught charity and helping others, leading to plans for a charity tour in the new year.

"If anybody is interested in music or anything like that, we'd be able to lend them an instrument or anything so they can travel or help people and charities," said Marc, the oldest of the three brothers.

@travismcewancbc