Published: June 07, 2008 01:55 pm      

Sound of silence echoes through the hills as bluegrass festival is no more

It endured for nearly a third of a century, drawing people to the McAlester area from around the nation and even from as far away as Canada.

It also brought legendary performers to the city —giants, such as the great Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley, whose songs will endure for as long as people listen to heartfelt music.

But now, the high lonesome sound of bluegrass will no longer be wafting through the pines at the festival grounds west of McAlester.

After hosting the festival each June for 31 consecutive years, the Sanders family has decided to close the curtains on the annual event.

Sanders family members say they have no plans for it to resume.

They thought a lot before coming to their decision — and it hadn’t been easy.

“I’ve lost a lot of sleep since we had to stop,” said Freddie Sanders. “We had it for 31 years and we met a lot of nice people.”

Still, he said the family made the decision together to end the festival.

“We all decided to do it,” he said. “Everybody’s getting older.”

Jo Sanders worked for years, along with her husband, Freddie, and other family members to help make the festival a success.

“It’s a big decision,” she said.

She said several things led to that decision.

Some of the younger family members weren’t quite as enthused about continuing it and some of the older ones were ... well, getting older.

The spike in gasoline prices has been a factor, especially in the last couple of years.

The largest portion of the festival’s fans didn’t come from the McAlester area, but instead drove here from across the country, riding in RVs, pulling trailers or hauling campers.

“Age, the economy and everything all came together,” Jo Sanders said. “Sooner or later it was going to come to this.”

Eddie Sanders, whose parents are Freddie and Jo Sanders, also had some thoughts on the festival’s demise.

“The festival has been one of those situations where the numbers have been dwindling over the years,” he said.

While many fans would travel across several states to get to the site, “We didn’t get a lot of local participation,” he noted.

The festival brought some truly remarkable performers to the city, one of whom even wrote a song in its honor — the great Monroe, who played at the Sanders Festival for several years.

Renowned as the man who created bluegrass music, he, along with Johnny Cash, is one of the few people in both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as an early influence.)

Monroe seemed to enjoy performing at the Sanders Family Bluegrass Festival.

Once, he even surprised the audience by saying he’d just written a new song he’d named “McAlester.”

The instrumental tune, picked on the mandolin, of course, brought an enthusiastic response from the crowd.

That mandolin by the way, the one he picked in McAlester and at other festivals, is now been valued at more than $1 million.

While there are still a lot of younger bluegrass music enthusiasts, it seems that most of them are on-stage playing in bands, not out in the audience listening. When some fans got too old to travel, they’re weren’t enough young ones to take their places.

“The audience has been getting older and with the gas prices, it all came together,” Eddie Sanders said.

In addition to the music, many festival-goers cited the camaraderie at the site as one of things they liked best about it.

Every year, scores of mini reunions were held among people who didn’t see each other until they drove onto the festival grounds. Many said one of their favorite things about the festival had been the many jam sessions taking place not onstage, but among the RVs and trailers on the festival grounds.

One could go from session-to-session listening to the banjos and Martin guitars (they had to be Martins if you played bluegrass) ringing in with the fiddles and Dobros.

Many of those attending the festival cited the personal touch the Sanders Family provided as one of their favorite things about the annual event.

Some said they’d attended every single festival, and many others had only missed one or two.

The Sanders family members knew many of them on a first-name basis.

If some of the bluegrass music fans will miss the Sanders family, they can be assured it’s a two-way street.

“We’re going to miss everybody,” Jo Sanders said.

Carl Sanders, who is a brother to Freddie and whose family also logged many hours working at the festival, couldn’t be reached for comment as this article was being written.

Now that it’s ended, the Sanders Family Bluegrass Festival will exist only in the memories of those were lucky enough to have attended it — and in the videotapes, sound recordings and photographs made at the site.

And when those are gone, the music will play on.

I have no doubt that if people are still listening to music 100 years from now, or 200 years from now, or however long this world lasts, the best of bluegrass music will endure — especially Monroe’s.

Like the song says, it will echo through the walls of time.

Contact James Beaty at jbeaty@mcalesternews.com.