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Weekly 150

Snead Picnic

Music Mecca of McKenzie

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In the quaint country setting of Snead’s Grove an almost forgotten gem of McKenzie history took place from 1937 to 1943. Snead Picnic was an annual country and folk music concert “picnic” attracting thousands to the Snead Community located between Highway 79 (Paris Highway) and Shiloh Road.
Living near Clear Lake Road in the early 1980s, I remember by granddad telling me stories about how there were concerts down the road when he was a young man. He told of how he met and sang with some big names like Little Jimmy Dickens and some others that I just can’t recall. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized the Snead Picnic was a big deal and not an exaggeration of a grandfather trying to impress his grandson. Many who took the stage were part of the Grand Ole Opry and members of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
The story of Snead Picnic begins with two brothers, Grady and Mace Snead. The brothers looked to provide “wholesome” and quality musical entertainment. From sunrise to sunset on the last Thursday in July, local musicians where featured along with some of the biggest names in the music business at the time.
The Sneads wanted to help in the advancement of the musical careers of some of the local talent, one such young musician was Hugh Gordon Stoker from Gleason, Tenn. The 12-year-old Stoker was a piano savant who caught the eye of John Daniel, manager of the famed Daniel Quartet, said he would make the boy a star someday. Stoker was already a name around West Tennessee from his early morning radio shows on WTJS in Jackson with “The Clement Trio.”
Gordon Stoker later joined the Daniel Quartet when he turned 15. In 1950, Stoker joined the Jordanaires. The group was elected in 2001 to both the Country Music and Gospel Hall of Fame. The group was noted for providing backup vocals to music legends like Elvis, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Don McLean and Dolly Parton.
Other local acts and entertainers in the day-long festival included the Girls Harmony Four of Paris, Sammy Ezell of Huntingdon, the Stockard Twins of McKenzie, Dick Martin and his string band of McKenzie, and Dan and His Twins of Henry.

Some of the most noted guest performances came from the Carter Family, the Duke of Paducah (Whitey Ford), Little Jimmy Dickens and Minnie Pearl all of which are in the Country Music Hall of Fame. There were other acts of some note that performed at the Snead Picnic, but very few written records remain and most of the oral history failed to be passed down through the generations.
It was truly an amazing feat to book those types of names that were heard and seen weekly on the Grand Ole Opry and WSM Radio. The Snead brothers used the community members in a team effort to pull off this yearly event. In those days it must have been a logistical nightmare trying to recruit and procure the acts, order and prepare the food to feed the masses, managing the crowds, taking tickets and even parking the cars.
The following comes from the writings and research of my mentor Dr. James Potts with Joy Sparks:
Miss Mary Snead recalls one year they counted eighteen thousand, and that was not the biggest crowd. They came from near and far, from several states around. When they gathered on the appointed day at Snead’s Grove out the old road from McKenzie to Paris, there were people and cars as far as the eye could see...it was the leadership of the late Grady Snead that created the community, and he was well aware of what he was doing. The announced purpose of the 1943 picnic was to“keep alive our own Southern Folk Songs, and the Southern way of gathering together in a community fashion.
I can only image being part of an event of that magnitude locally, with all the music, the food and the crowd. By today’s standards 18 to 20 thousand doesn’t sound like an astounding number of people with venues like Neyland Stadium and Michigan Stadium holding upwards of 100,000 people, but picture having the majority of the population of Carroll Country on a few acres of rural farm land with few amenities.
The Snead brothers were able to pull off these prodigious and historical events drawing crowds that would fill the Ryman Auditorium nine times over. The brothers truly own a piece of McKenzie history for their accomplishments with the Snead Picnic.

Weekly 150, McKenzie