At the request of Boyd Hudgens, I will describe some of the early days at the Hugo, Oklahoma Bluegrass festival that was held at Bill Grant's Salt Creek Park the first week of August each year. The official festival dates were from the first Wednesday of August to the following Sunday. I believe the festival ran each year from about 1969 until 2004.
My brother, Wayne, had been going to the festival for several years with a friend of ours, Hal Parker. Hal loved the music and is really responsible for getting us both to go. I was in graduate school (1971-73) when he first urged me to take off and go to Hugo, but I resisted. I attended for the first time in 1974 after I had been working at East Texas State University in Commerce for a year. Wayne and I drove up on Saturday morning and sat in the rain all day and listened to every band. There was mud everywhere and, in spite of the rain, an enthusiastic crowd. We drove back to my apartment in Commerce late Saturday night. I was already hooked and we drove back to the festival on Sunday.
I had just gotten an Alvarez banjo the Christmas before and was really working hard to learn to play it. I remember listening intently to the banjo players at the festival. Of all the banjo players we heard that weekend, I remember thinking that Alan Munde, Little Roy Lewis, and Sonny Osborne were the best. After all these years, my opinion has not changed.
I became aware of the "parking lot pickin'" when we left the festival on Saturday night. There was a small group of pickers under a covered place near where we had parked our car. I was astonished at how well they played and how much fun they were having. I learned everything I could during the next year so I could participate at the 1975 festival.
At the 1975 festival, I took a tent with me and went alone to the park to camp. I don't recall which day I went, but I'm sure it was before the festival officially started. I found a place to camp at the bottom of the hill and put up my tent. The first person I met was a picker named Ivan Burton. We didn't introduce ourselves, but he gave me a card that had his name on it. Underneath he had written "5-String," indicating what he played. I immediately began calling
him 5-String and still do. He was a friendly, interesting and helpful person and we became good friends.
The atmosphere of the festival was strong enough to immediately put you in another world. I have been to many festivals over the years and have never encountered one that was so exciting and joyful. Perhaps 5-String and others around our camp helped a lot. But I think there were just many ingredients that were magically combined at that time. People were still influenced by the hootenannies of the 1960's, the sixties themselves, and the Bonnie and Clyde (Foggy Mountain Breakdown) and Deliverance (Dueling Banjos) movies. There were many young people so eager to learn to play. They didn't mind traveling long distances, living in a tent for a week, and getting to know complete strangers to swap licks.
We played and laughed and watched contests and bands all week. I'm sure we didn't eat well or sleep well, and we probably didn't smell too well either. But we were so happy. We made friends with the Kriehn family from Bryan, Texas. I remember Doyle Marshall from Arkansas being there also. On Sunday morning 5-String prepared to leave. He and I talked about how we would meet in the same spot for the next festival.
At the 1976 festival, I am sure I arrived on the Sunday or Monday before it started. The Kriehns, 5-String and several of the others who had camped nearby were in the same places. A community had started to grow that would continue for quite a few more years. I moved to Norman, Oklahoma in 1977 to attend the University of Oklahoma. While in the area I met Steve Annis, a fine mandolin and guitar player. He joined our Hugo camping group in 1978 or 1979.
I had met Boyd Hudgens and Gary Moreland at a fiddle contest in Jefferson, Texas at some point. I'm sure I was encouraging him to come to the Hugo festival. We had started playing at his house in Honey Grove about once per week. Since I always learned how to play a little better by watching him, I knew I wanted him around. I also thought that no one should miss the enjoyment that was so plentiful at Hugo.
I don't recall the first year that Boyd came to our camp site. But through him, I met Kelly and Janice Connell, Joe Smith, and probably lots of other fine pickers. I must have also met Boyd's wife, Debbie, there but I can't recall doing so. Much later, I met James and Anna Martin, Danny Martin, James and Linda Roberts, and the members of Simply Gospel.
The Hugo Festival was most influential in my life. This is partly true because of the people I met there and how much I learned from and enjoyed them. The festival was also a powerful motivator because I wanted to be able to play well and to have a large body of songs that I could play. All year long I would anticipate and prepare for that week. Of course I had to (and did) maintain other parts of my life, but the first week of August was always close to my attention. I would study and practice to be able to enjoy that week to the fullest. There is a lesson of life in all this. In most things a person does, the harder you work, the more fun you have.
Even though the Salt Creek Park festival is no more, the connections formed there continue to shape a significant part of my life. I am lucky enough to get to play with Boyd (and Debbie), James and Anna, Sam and Reva Bolton in the Hard2Git Bluegrass Band. We have such good fun. I likely wouldn't know these people if I had not sat through that rainy 1974 festival.
Stuart Anderson
