Sullivan Family
Bands / Ensembles
The Sullivan Family (1950–early 2010s) was a bluegrass gospel band from St. Stephens, in Washington County, Alabama. It grew out of the family gospel group led by Pentecostal minister James Arthur Sullivan, whose sons Enoch and Emmett played at his church services as Brother Arthur and the Boys. Margie Brewster, a Louisiana-born singer and guitarist, joined after Enoch proposed to her in 1949, and the two married that December. In 1950 the group began appearing regularly on radio stations WPBB in Jackson and WJDB in Thomasville, taking the name the Sullivan Family Band fashioned after the Carter Family. Their 1957 single on Sandy Records, "I Can See God's Moving Hand," reached the top 100 of a Billboard chart. After Arthur died in November 1957, Enoch led the band, with Emmett on banjo and Margie as vocalist. From 1968 the family appeared regularly at festivals with Bill Monroe, and in 1974 they signed with Monroe's booking agency. Young musicians, including a teenage Marty Stuart, apprenticed with the band. The family also ran gospel bluegrass festivals at its Sullivan Family Park in St. Stephens and toured Europe, Canada and Mexico. Emmett died in 1993, Margie stopped performing after a heart attack in 2009, and Enoch died in 2011. Enoch's uncle Jerry Sullivan and his daughter Tammy Sullivan Causey continued as the band into the early 2010s.
In the newsletter
- No. 19 Spring 1999