Sullivan's Win Living Legend Award
for Service in Gospel Music
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
Pull up a chair and we will have a cup of coffee, real coffee, brewed the Louisiana way. Meet your neighbors, Enoch and Margie Sullivan.
More often than not, Sister Margie will have a big pot of gumbo or jambalaya. You will have to sit down and put your feet under their table, share their Southern hospitality. Life doesn't get any better than this.
Enoch, Margie and their music go back 52 years. It all began at the Sullivan home place where Enoch's father, Arthur Sullivan, played String Band Music in the 1930's and 40's.
Enoch learned to play the guitar in church choir. It was a string band choir and he was about eight years old. He learned to play the mandolin at nine and the fiddle at ten.
Enoch traded a pig for his first fiddle to MR. Eli (Buck) Stoker. Later on Uncle Lonnie Padget, a renown fiddler, swapped him a "good fiddle" for this "pig fiddle" telling Enoch. "You're a young man and I can tell you are going to be a good fiddle player in years to come." Enoch had told "Uncle Lonnie" he couldn't trade because, "my fiddle is not as good as yours and I couldn't, I wouldn't be able to pay any difference." Padgent protested, "I'm gonna swap with you even," and he did.
In the meantime, in the bayou of Louisiana, a young girl named Margie Brewster was longing for a guitar. A neighbor, Alonzo Mayberry, and his wife Edna would come over to the Brewster's house, play and sing gospel songs until the wee hours of the night. Margie wanted to play the guitar. Her family was sharecroppers, the year she was 13 years old, her father promised her she could have a choice of a watch or a guitar if she would help with the cotton crop. Thus, Margie earned her first guitar. Her mother bought it from Montgomery Ward and paid $15.00 for it; today it would cost $150.00. Margie used the guitar in her first gospel work.
Many things happened that year, Margie left Louisiana to travel with the evangelist, Helen Chain, destination, Sunflower, Alabama. The year was 1946. as destiny would have it, this was when Margie and Enoch met. It was love at first sight. They were married three years later, December 23, 1949, in Picayune, Mississippi. The rest is history!
On August 10, 2001, The Sullivans played before a crowd of thousands in the Peace Auditorium in Greenville, South Carolina. There were 23 bands present.
At the end of the concert, Sister Margie and Enoch were asked to return to the stage. At this time they were presented The Living Legend Award for their contribution to Bluegrass Gospel Music.
They spent the last half century of their lives, "making music together." They have traveled extensively, bringing many of the all time greats like the late, great Jimmy Davis, Bill Monroe, Charlie Louvin ad others to the Alabama Bluegrass Park at the old Sullivan Home Place.
They still work approximately 300 days each year playing for festivals, benefits and church related programs.
If you haven't met the Sullivans, get to know the family and their music. October 19, is you opportunity. It is their fall festival held at the Old Sullivan Home Place Park on the Mobile Cut Off Road.
Bring your lawn chair. It is a little like the Sullivan living room. You are always welcome, coffee will be on. There will be a concession and a fabulous line up of musicians:
Gospel Gold, Southern Gospel, The Bush Family, Sonshine Gospel Travelers on Friday and Saturday, and The Lamberts, Jim Williams Family String Ensemble on Saturday.
The program is hosted by the Sullivan Family and others, Programs start Friday at 7:00 pm and Saturday at 2:00 and 7:00 pm.
Admission BOTH DAYS IS FREE. The concession stand will be hosted by Cedar Curve Church. A love offering will be taken for the guest bands.
Relax under the stars, let the music massage your very soul, courtesy of the Sullivan Family. Discover for yourself why the Grand Ole Gospel Reunion presented each of them with the Living Legend Award for their contribution to Gospel Music.
Frances Richardson, Staff Writer
Washington Country News
Wednesday, October 17, 2001