NEWS
January 3, 2009

Max Sanders (in the window on the far left) is pictured with his bandmates from Uncle Sam, an Oxford-based college band from the 70s. The band plans to reunite for a performance on March 28. The location hasn’t been confirmed.

By JAMIE PATTERSON
Herald Reporter

Uncle Sam was a college band that once provided music at a birthday bash for the legendary Bear Bryant.
The nine-member band once performed at a New Year’s Eve bash in Nashville, sharing the bill with Grand Funk Railroad.
The talented musicians also paid their way through college playing gigs and other performances.
That’s pretty impressive for a group of Ole Miss students who were just interested in playing music.
Many Yazooans might also be surprised to learn that the group’s trumpet player is busy today filling prescriptions at a local pharmacy.
Max Sanders, pharmacist at Essco, may be loading bottles with an assortment of pills today. But 30 years ago, he was belting out tunes on his trumpet and traveling across the country in an old school bus.
Sanders was a true rocker.
“It was so much fun,” Sanders said. “It was a very unique group of people. If it wasn’t that much fun, we wouldn’t have done it.”
Sanders always had his fingers on the trumpet growing up. He was in his high school band, and he decided to join the marching band when he arrived at the University of Mississippi.
The Ole Miss marching band was where he met a group of guys who changed the next few years of his life.
The group was part of a band called Uncle Sam. The band had been playing different venues for about a year. They were making a name for themselves and decent money, and it just so happened that they needed a trumpet player.
“That’s how I got to know these guys,” Sanders said. “One of the trumpet players was graduating and going to work. They were recruiting somebody to take his place. They invited me.”
Sanders was part of the four piece horn section in Uncle Sam. There were two trumpet players, one trombone player and a saxophonist.
Uncle Sam not a small three piece act. The band had it all: drums, guitars, singers, trumpets, saxophones, trombones and other instruments.
The band even entertained the crowd with skits and choreography. There was even a half hour 1950s Grease Showcase.
Uncle Sam knew how to put on a show, and demand for the band increased.
“We were playing every weekend on Fridays and Saturdays at almost every fraternity and sorority house in the Southeast,” Sanders said. “We went from South Carolina to Louisiana to Georgia to Alabama and Florida. We were pretty well known throughout the South.”
Sanders had been in a few bands before, so he was aware of the rewards and challenges that came with the job.
Sanders enjoyed the friendships he developed in Uncle Sam. His fellow band members became his best friends. The boys played together, studied together, traveled together and did everything in between together.
“Being with the guys was the best part,” Sanders said.
The band survived wrecks and other mishaps on the road. But balancing their studies with work was the biggest challenge.
“You had to work hard to leave at noon on Friday,” Sanders said. “Then you had to drive for four to eight hours on an old school bus, play for four hours, set up your own equipment, take down your equipment, pack up, load up and get back home at three in the morning or at the worst, roll in at daylight. You still had to get in the shower and head for class.”
The gigs literally paid the group’s way through college. But it was challenging because the group was not studying basket weaving or pottery.
The boys were in medical school, law school and other difficult studies.
“These were guys who were studying to be lawyers, engineers and that sort of thing,” Sanders said. “To do what we did, we were pretty driven. They were very ambitious folks.”
After being in the band for four years, Sanders went on to become a pharmacist. Uncle Sam disbanded, and each musician went on to work.
“We reached a point where we realized that we were not going to sell a million records,” Sanders said. “We couldn’t do this forever, and we had to go to work.”
Sanders has kept in touch with most of his old band friends over the years. Uncle Sam has had about three reunions since disbanding.
The members of Uncle Sam grew up to become community leaders and professionals. The saxophone player is now chairman of the geophysics department at Stanford University. The lead singer is chairman of the art department at the University of Central Florida. One member ended up becoming band director at Ole Miss. A few became bankers, lawyers, scientists and even mayors.
“Four of these guys are still playing in a group called Class Reunion,” Sanders said. “They have played here in Yazoo City for a lot of weddings, receptions and reunions. They still play the same songs.”
Sanders describes the sound of Uncle Sam as Carolina Party Music with influences of Sly and the Family Stone, Santana and early Chicago.
Uncle Sam is organizing another reunion in March, and Sanders said he is ready to catch up with some old friends.
“I still remember the songs,” Sanders said. “It is easier for the guys who still play every weekend to pick up their instruments and play. I haven’t played in five years since the last time we got together.”
Sanders knows it will all come back to him when the guys get back together.
Until then, Sanders will spend his days filling prescriptions. That’s just fine with him, but he is anxious to bring out the old song list used to tape on the back of his amplifier. He still has the original wrinkled setlist from 1971.
Sanders may be a professional now, but who could blame him if his thoughts drift back to the stage from time to time?