bluegrass gospel

Since the late 1940s, there has been a music sent forth from lower Alabama that is in part, the soundtrack to so many lives throughout the southland. That sound is a firebrand collective of a rhythm based, beat-driven, Cajun tinged style of lonesome bluegrass, church house, rock and roll which serves as the infrastructure to a catalogue of songs built upon stories and teachings from the Old and New Testaments. Songs that inspire hope, faith, and the promise of Heaven, its rewards, and eternal, unspeakable beauty. The term most commonly associated with this music is bluegrass gospel. The people who pioneered the sound of this brush arbor style of Pentecostal sonic beauty is the Sullivan Family Gospel Singers from St. Stephens, Alabama. Reverend Arthur Sullivan was the first of the family to present the family’s music along with his sermon on the radio airwaves in South Alabama beginning in 1949. After brother Arthur’s passing, the family’s music was carried around the world by his brother Jerry and his sons Emmett and Enoch, along with Enoch’s wife, Margie.

 

In the late 1970s, Jerry Sullivan formed his own group with his daughter Tammy Sullivan. Along with being a world-class musician, what set Jerry apart was his gift of songwriting. His was the soul of a gospel poet. Jerry Sullivan’s earliest compositions served as some of the cornerstone titles in the Sullivan family’s canon of songs. Like his fellow Alabamian, Hank Williams, Jerry Sullivan’s words never took up much space on paper. The two men’s songs are kindred spirits in scope, range, and vast depth — heart songs with timeless appeal.

 

My first job playing music professionally was in the summer of 1972 with Enoch, Margie, and Emmett Sullivan and I loved every mile of it. It was during those days of joyful first discovery that I came to know all of the Sullivans, the power of their music, and the beauty of their songs…songs that were celestial, powerful, uplifting, get in your soul and stay there kind of songs. I soon discovered that most of the songs that hit the hardest and went deepest were written by Jerry Sullivan. At the end of that summer, I got a job in Nashville, playing in Lester Flatt’s band and my Sullivan Family times became few and far between. In the late 1980s, after years of distance, Jerry reached out to me and invited me to come and play some music with him and Tammy. His call came at the perfect time. My career was in a slump and I had less than nothing going on. On the very first day of being back around Jerry (or Uncle Jug as I called him), we began to write songs. As the months rolled on, songs seemed to pour from the sky. On one three day stretch we wrote over twenty songs, all keepers. As the years rolled by, we wrote so many songs that I lost count. However, Tammy Sullivan and her husband Jonathan Causey kept track not only of the songs Jerry and I wrote,  but they also had the foresight to record or write down the words to most Jerry Sullivan related songs.

 

It’s unbelievable, but Enoch, Emmett, Jerry, and Tammy have all now gone. What they left behind are countless lives that were touched by their presence and music. The Sullivan sound, as well as the words to their songs, are simply part of the atmosphere of the South. However, music unplayed and songs unsung are in danger of becoming lost treasures relegated to the dust bins of history, victims of the passing of time. Hope is found for such matters in the book of Isaiah, Chapter eleven, verse eleven. The Scripture says, “at the appointed time, the Lord will bring back a remnant.” Concerning those divinely inspired songs sent down from Heaven to Jerry Sullivan and those of us who wrote with him, were it not for Jonathan Causey and his and Tammy’s son, Jon Gideon, I fear all would be lost. As said, Jonathan has kept an eye on the manuscripts, notebooks, tapes, and scraps of paper left in the wake of so many creative storms, and he keeps those songs alive by playing and singing them. When I listen to this record which is filled with some of those songs, my heart is enriched. It is a joyful noise, indeed. I think of the Sullivans all over again and miss them all the more. Some of the songs on this record such as “Pray” I don’t recall writing, although others I fondly remember writing with Uncle Jug in his gospel bus, the backrooms of little country churches along the brush arbor trail, by the ocean, under trees, sitting by Uncle Jug’s garden,backstage at auditoriums and at gospel singings. Wherever we were, we would get into our own world and write. God always met us in those times and gave us beautiful songs.

 

When I listen to this recording, I can’t help but think how proud Tammy would be to hear Jon Gideon singing. He’s got the family tones along with the cool factor to go with it. He is to be a standard-bearer no doubt, and a bona fide cat in the making. Another standard in the realm of the holy spirit is the passing of mantles. So much of Jerry Sullivan’s life work now rests in the heart, soul, and mind of Jonathan Causey. Jonathan was a son-in-law, but Jerry loved him like a son. He knows full well the weight of the voice in the wilderness job that lies ahead. But I know Jonathan, and I know that he believes God will make a way for him, song by song, prayer by prayer, mile by mile, as he journeys on the gospel way and continues to proclaim

 

THE GREATEST STORY.