Louisiana Hayride is a radio and later television country music show that was broadcast from the Shreveport Municipal Memorial Auditorium in Shreveport, Louisiana; during its heyday from 1948 to 1960, it helped to launch the careers of some of the greatest names in American country and western music. Created by KWKH station manager Henry Clay, the show is notable as a performance venue for a number of 1950s country musicians, as well as a nascent Elvis Presley.

Hayride history

Beginnings

thumb|250px|[[Shreveport Municipal Memorial Auditorium]]

The creators of the show took the name from the 1941 book with that title by Harnett Thomas Kane. First broadcast on April 3, 1948, from the Municipal Auditorium in downtown Shreveport, Horace Logan was the original producer and emcee. The musical cast for the inaugural broadcast included the Bailes Brothers, Johnnie and Jack, the Tennessee Mountain Boys with Kitty Wells, the Four Deacons, Curley Kinsey and the Tennessee Ridge Runners, Harmie Smith, the Ozark Mountaineers, the Mercy Brothers, and Tex Grimsley and the Texas Showboys. Nonetheless, Presley was signed to a one-year contract for future appearances. Presley became so popular that after his final appearance on Hayride in 1956, emcee Horace Logan announced to the crowd a phrase that would become famous: "Elvis has left the building."

The immediate and enormous demand for more of Presley's new kind of rockabilly music actually resulted in a sharp decline in the popularity of the Louisiana Hayride that until that point had been strictly a country-music venue. On March 3, 1955, Presley made his first television appearance on the TV version of The Louisiana Hayride, carried by KSLA-TV, the CBS affiliate in Shreveport.

Cancellation and revivals

thumb|upright|Elvis Presley in Louisiana Hayride

Within a few years, rock and roll had come to dominate the music scene, and on August 27, 1960, Louisiana Hayride ended its primary run. However, KWKH continued to use the Louisiana Hayride name for packaged music tours throughout the 1960s on a biweekly, monthly, or quarterly basis, finally ending operations entirely in 1969. As of May 31, 2012, KWKH had changed to a sports format and ceased producing the classic country-music format reminiscent of the Hayride era.

At the Louisiana Hayride Tonight

At the Louisiana Hayride Tonight, a set of 20 CDs with 599 Hayride performances, was released in October 2017 by Bear Family Records. The release includes a book on the Hayride's history. A live recording of Jambalaya (On the Bayou), by Hank Williams, is included in the set. The set includes archival material from the collection of Chris Brown, Archivist at Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport, with the bulk of the audio and images in the set sourced from an archive originally assembled by Joey Kent between 1992–2009 and donated to the Library of Congress in 2009.

thumb|left|[[Slim Whitman|Otis Dewey "Slim" Whitman, who appeared on the radio program Louisiana Hayride]]

Performers

  • Betty Amos
  • Jack Anglin
  • Bailes Brothers
  • Benny Barnes
  • Ray Belcher
  • Carl Belew
  • Dudley Bernard
  • Bill Black
  • Eddie Bond
  • Brad & Jerry
  • The Browns
  • Vin Bruce
  • Gary Bryant
  • Roy Burks
  • Bill Carlisle
  • Johnny Cash
  • Mary Jo Chelette and the Chelette Sisters
  • Zeke Clements
  • Patsy Cline
  • Jeff Dale
  • Jimmie Davis
  • Jimmy Dickens
  • William (Tex) Dickerson
  • Tibby Edwards
  • Werly Fairburn
  • Jimmy Fautheree
  • Pete Fontana
  • Tillman Franks
  • Bob Gallion
  • Marshall Grant
  • The Gays
  • Cliff Grimely
  • Roy Hendrix
  • Jeanette Hicks
  • Goldie Hill
  • Tommy Hill
  • Hoot & Curley
  • Johnny Horton
  • Johnny Ray Harris
  • David Houston
  • Cowboy Jack Hunt
  • Little Joe Hunt (world's fastest banjo picker)
  • Sonny James
  • Jimmy & Johnny
  • Jerry Johnson
  • George Jones
  • Grandpa Jones
  • Oakie Jones
  • Jack Kay
  • Buddy Thompson
  • Merle Kilgore
  • Claude King
  • Jay King
  • Horace Logan
  • Bob Luman
  • Maddox Brothers and Rose
  • Emory Martin
  • Jimmy Martin
  • Johnny "Country" Mathis
  • Paul Mims
  • Scotty Moore
  • Willie Nelson
  • Bill Nettles
  • Jimmy C. Newman
  • James O'Gwynn
  • Jimmy Osborne
  • Buck Owens
  • Frank Page
  • Leon Payne
  • Luther Perkins
  • Charlie "Sugartime" Phillips
  • Webb Pierce
  • Elvis Presley
  • JD Railey
  • Jim Reeves
  • Donn Reynolds
  • Jack Rhodes
  • Rice Brothers
  • Gene Rodique
  • Dido Rowley
  • Tommy Sands
  • Johnny Sea
  • Shelton Brothers
  • Bob Shelton
  • Joe Shelton
  • Eddy Sims
  • Margie Singleton
  • Billy R. Smith
  • Harmie Smith
  • Roy Sneed
  • Bob Stegall
  • Red Sovine
  • Charlie Stokley
  • Nat Stuckey
  • Tommy Tomlinson
  • Tommy Trent
  • Billy Walker
  • Don Warden
  • Kitty Wells
  • Slim Whitman
  • Wilburn Brothers
  • Wilkins-Knight Trio
  • Slim Willet
  • Audrey Williams
  • Hank Williams
  • Bob Wills
  • Kitty Wilson
  • Smiley Wilson
  • Mac Wiseman
  • Ginny Wright
  • Johnnie Wright
  • Ron Johnson
  • Faron Young
  • York Brothers
  • Harvey Farr (musician)
  • Charles Billy Kirkpatrick (bass)
  • D. J. Fontana
  • Wallace and Charlie Mercer
  • Joseph "Gene" Cox
  • Dan Emory

Footnotes

References

  • The Louisiana Hayride Years: Making Musical History in Country's Golden Age by Horace Logan – (1999) St. Martin's Press ()

Further reading

  • Louisiana Hayride: Radio and Roots Music along the Red River by Tracey E.W. Laird (2004) Oxford University Press ()
  • Cradle of the Stars: KWKH & The Louisiana Hayride by Joey Kent (2019) Pelican Publishing Company (, )
  • Shreveport Municipal Memorial Auditorium
  • Hillbilly-Music.com
  • Elvis Presley on Louisiana Hayride
  • 558 episodes.