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Louisiana Hayride
BEGINNING THE LOUISIANA
HAYRIDE
The name “Louisiana Hayride” was not original; it was a
borrowed term, as Harnett T. Kane had written a book on
Governor Huey P. Long with the same title, and a
Broadway production also carried the name. It was early
1948 when the show by that same name aired.1
KWKH, a local radio station, broadcast it,
and it was held in the Municipal Memorial Auditorium at
705 Grand Avenue in Shreveport.2
The Municipal Memorial Auditorium was constructed from
the designs of architect Sam G. Wiener and completed in
1929 for a total cost of about $750,000.3 In
1975 the structure, which was dedicated to World War I
veterans, was one of the fifty-four chosen for a
photographic exhibit in New York City that honored the
Art Deco style.4 When it opened it had a
seating capacity of nearly 4,000, and nearly all of
these seats were filled on Saturday nights.5
The first Hayride broadcast, held on April 3, 1948,
included performers Johnny and Jack and the Tennessee
Mountain Boys, the Mercer Brothers,
Kitty Wells, the Bailes Brothers, the Four Deacons, Harmie Smith and the
Ozark Mountaineers, Curley Kinsey and the Tennessee
Ridge Runners, Tex Grimsley and his Texas Playboys, and
Pappy Covington.6
HANK WILLIAMS, SR.
Hank Williams, Sr. had both a strong desire to be on the
show and a drinking problem, so he made a deal with
Horace Logan, the show’s producer and emcee. If Williams
remained sober for the following six months, he’d have a
spot on the show.7 Six months later, on
August 7, 1948, Hank Williams, Sr. made his debut on the
Hayride. The first song he played was an original song
he’d previously recorded for MGM, “Move It on Over.” A
few days later he signed a one-year contract with KWKH
and became a regular name on the cast list for the
Hayride.8
At the Hayride in the fall of 1948, Williams first sang
“Lovesick Blues.” The audience loved it, gave Williams
so many encores that there was little time for anything
else, and barely let him leave the stage. He performed a
number of times on the Hayride over the next year, but
on June 3, 1949 crowds packed themselves into the
Municipal Memorial Auditorium to bid farewell to
Williams, who was heading to the Grand Ole Opry. Tickets
at that time were sixty cents for adults and thirty for
children, and the auditorium was filled with people,
while hundreds of others were turned away for lack of
seating.9
Williams would later return to the Hayride on September
20, 1952, playing “Jambalaya” and “Settin’ the Woods on
Fire.” He signed a contract with the Hayride on
September 24, 1952, guaranteeing that he would perform
there for three years.10 Unfortunately,
Williams was unable to keep this contract: he died on
New Year’s Day, 1953.11
SLIM WHITMAN, WEBB PIERCE, and FARON YOUNG
After Hank Williams left in 1949, the bigwigs in charge
of the Hayride feared the show would decline. The crowd
lessened, but not as much as they had expected. The
Hayride saw Slim Whitman debut on April 7, 1950.12
He recorded “Indian Love Call,” “Rose-Marie,” and “Love
Song of the Waterfall” first in the KWKH studios.
Whitman was later invited to perform on the Grand Ole
Opry, but refused and stayed on the Hayride.13
Webb Pierce made his debut a week after Whitman on April
14.14 Pierce was a talent scout of sorts.
Originally from West Monroe, Pierce worked at Sears in
Shreveport after high school, working his way up the
ladder to becoming the men’s department manager.15
But in the evenings, he played at churches, meetings,
and schools. Late in 1949, after working some time on a
gospel music program on KTBS radio in Shreveport, Pierce
approached Logan about appearing on the Hayride. At
first Logan turned him down because there was a rule
that anyone working for a competing radio station was
not allowed to perform. Pierce was adamant and insisted
that his job at KTBS meant little compared to having a
regular spot on the Hayride.16 Pierce’s first
big song was “Drifting Texas Sand.” Some of his others
include “Slowly,” “There Stands the Glass,” “That Heart
Belongs to Me,” “In the Jailhouse Now,” and “It’s Been
So Long.” He was responsible for introducing Floyd
Cramer to the Hayride as his
 piano player. Jimmy Day, a
master steel guitarist, also worked as a sideman. When
Pierce went off to the Grand Ole Opry, Cramer and Day
stayed behind on the staff band.17
Pierce also discovered Faron Young, a native of
Shreveport who became part of the cast in October of
1950. Shortly after his first few appearances, Young
went off to Nashville on the wings of the songs “Hello,
Walls” and “I Miss Her Already.” He was also known for
his song “Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young.”18
It was these three men who gave the Hayride a solid cast
that supported the show.19
SUPPLYING THE GRAND OLE OPRY
In its heyday, the Louisiana Hayride rivaled the Grand
Ole Opry.20 But when Hank Williams left the
Hayride for the Grand Ole Opry, he set a pattern for
later Hayride stars. In the late 1940’s and early
1950’s, the Hayride supplied Nashville, Tennessee with a
number of stars.21 Some of the performers
went from playing the Hayride to being well-known
performers nationwide. The Wilburn Brothers were among
the first of the show’s regulars, starting to play in
1948. After the Korean War, two of the brothers signed a
contract with Decca Records and produced hit after hit.
Another group, The Browns, was a sibling act, who first
appeared on the show in May of 1954. Their song, “I Was
Looking Back to See,” was recorded in the KWKH studios
with Jim Reeves on rhythm guitar and the staff band. The
song became a national hit, followed later by “The Three
Bells.”22
RADIO
By 1950 twenty-seven radio stations in four states were
carrying the Hayride as part of their programming.23
In December of 1952 the CBS Radio Network picked up the
Hayride, and in January of 1953 CBS began their weekly
series Saturday Night – Country Style, which
included six country music shows throughout the nation.
The Hayride had thirty minutes every third Saturday of
the month. In early 1953 the Little Rock, Arkansas
station KTHS broadcasted the Hayride in its entirety.
With this newfound national publicity, the Hayride
earned the nickname “Cradle of the Stars.” It also gave
some of the later Hayride stars a reason to stay in
Shreveport longer than previous performers had.24
KITTY WELLS
Women performers weren’t seen often on the Hayride until
Kitty Wells became the
first female country music star. She was a background
vocalist for the group, Johnny and Jack,
which became
part of the Hayride,
performing on the first show and again as regulars for several later shows. When
Johnny and Jack had success with their RCA labeled
record “Poison Love,” they packed up for Nashville, but
left Wells behind. Since she wanted to stay on with the
Hayride, Logan, being interested in diversity, hired
her. Before the song was released on a record, the
audiences of the Hayride heard “It Wasn’t God Who Made
Honky-Tonk Angels.” When she recorded it, Johnny and
Jack were her musicians, and from then on, they worked
for her. It wasn’t long before she left the Hayride for
Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry.25
JIM REEVES
Jim Reeves’s first appearance on the Hayride came when
he was a stand-in for Hank Williams when Williams was
unable to perform. He then performed as a stand-in
several more times over the next couple of months, and
although his performances went over well, they weren’t
enough to catapult him into instant success. Reeves
developed his sound as he worked as an announcer on the
show, and eventually he found a song called, “Mexican
Joe,” which he first recorded in the KWKH studio with
the Hayride staff band. Some of his later hits include
"Four Walls," "Touch of Velvet," "Guilty," "I Could
Cry," "I'll Follow You," and "He'll Have to Go."26
JOHNNY CASH
It was December 10, 1955 when Johnny Cash and his
Tennessee Two appeared on the Louisiana Hayride. When he
left the stage after his performance that night, Logan
immediately offered him a spot on the cast as a regular,
and he accepted. He signed his contract in January of
1956. The nation kept its eyes on the Hayride as Johnny
Cash’s career took off. In April of 1956 he recorded “I
Walk the Line,” and the success of that single, which
was still holding the number three position at the end
of 1956, pulled Cash away from Shreveport. By late 1958
Cash had moved on to the Opry.27
JOHNNY HORTON
Johnny Horton made his first appearance on the Hayride
in May of 1952, and soon became a favorite with the
audience. From that point on, he lived in Shreveport
until his death. 28 (As a side note, Horton
loved to fish, and often he and Logan went fishing
together on Cross Lake or
Caddo Lake. Sometimes Johnny
Cash would tag along.29
In January of 1956 he recorded “I’m a One-Woman Man” and
“Honky Tonk Man” for Columbia records and by May of that
year “Honky Tonk Man” put him on the charts. In 1959
Horton had a song that spent ten weeks on top of the
country and pop music charts, sold about 2.5 million
copies, and had practically everyone in the nation
humming it. “The Battle of New Orleans” got him an
appearance on the Dick Clark and the Ed Sullivan Shows,
and he bought a home in the Shreve Island area of
Shreveport.30
Johnny Horton got invitations
to the Opry, but declined. He continued on with the
Hayride.31 Horton was killed in a car
accident and is buried at Hillcrest Memorial Park on US
Highway 80 East near Louisiana Downs. 32
ELVIS PRESLEY
Elvis Presley had been shunned by the Grand Ole Opry
early on in his career for his style of music, and if
the audience at the Hayride had treated him in the same
way, he may have given up his performing career. Elvis
performed on October 16 and 23, 1954 and a couple of
weeks after his debut, Elvis and his parents signed a
contract for him to become a regular on the Hayride for
eighteen months. A younger generation, his main
audience, learned that he would be performing and began
to arrive at the Municipal Auditorium from different
states.33
END OF AN ERA
Elvis had revitalized the Hayride when he took the
stage, but when he left Shreveport, he took most of the
new-found fans with him.34 When the Louisiana
Hayride ended in November of 1958, it had aired for over
550 consecutive Saturday nights.35
References
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