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GAC Television host Nan Kelley met with Willie Nelson in Nashville, when he was in town to perform at Keith Urban’s, “We’re All For the Hall” Fundraiser for the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Couple seeks to restore Hayride to its former glory
(Tuesday, January 19, 1999)
By Mary Foster

SHREVEPORT, La. - Almost 50 years have passed since the sounds of the  Louisiana Hayride floated out over the bayous and swamps of its home state,  then west to the little towns and ranches of Texas, north and east to the  hardscrabble farms of Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and points beyond.

The live radio shows packed the Municipal Auditorium on Saturday nights and  had people dancing on their porches, in their living rooms and in honky-tonks  and churches around the country. The Hayride was Elvis Presley’s first national stage and launched the careers of some of country music’s biggest  names.

Now Maggie and Alton Warwick are hoping to bring the Hayride back on a regular  broadcast as it was back then.

“It’s amazing how many people have stories about the Hayride,” said Maggie  Warwick, who first listened to the program as a west Texas teenager and later  performed on the show.

“So many people remember the shows, being there or listening to them on the  radio. It was a big part of our lives.”

>From 1948 to 1960 the Hayride blossomed in the region still known as the “Ark- La-Tex,” a mix of cultures that included hillbilly, Western swing, blues,  gospel, jazz and pop music.

“People think hillbilly is a derogatory term now,” said Tillman Franks, a  Hayride alumnus. “Back then it was just the kind of music a lot of people  liked. They called it country and western later to try to dress it up, but it  was pretty darn good when it was plain old hillbilly.”

Aired live on 50,000-watt KWKH radio,the show was relayed nationally by CBS  and overseas by Armed Forces Radio. As Saturday night entertainment, it was  addictive.

“We had the only radio around and people came from all over to listen to the  Hayride,” John LeBlanc of Lafayette remembered. “We lived way out in the  middle of nowhere, but come Saturday night the yard was full of pickups and  our old Philco was playing full-blast.”

The Shreveport Municipal Auditorium bustled every Saturday night with people  jamming the aisles for music, comedy and contests all wrapped in a down-home  atmosphere.

“They used to give away prizes. I guess they were from the sponsors,” said  architect Bill Weiner, who attended as a teenager. “I won it one night and I  remember I got a bunch of stuff that seems pretty funny now — loaves of  bread, pots and pans, some dishes — things a teenager wouldn’t even take  now.”

It was on the Municipal Auditorium stage that Hank Williams built his  reputation in the early 1950s, followed by Johnny Cash, Slim Whitman and  Johnny Horton.

Elvis Presley started out earning $18 a show at the Hayride. Three years  later, for his final performance, the show had to be moved from the 3,200-seat  auditorium to the State Fair Grounds for the 10,000 teenage girls wanting to  see The King.

“The gyrating rotary troubadour was seldom if ever heard by an audience,  screaming every time he moved,” the Shreveport Times reported the next day.  “One of the finest displays of mass hysteria in Shreveport history.”

It was at the Hayride in 1956 that producer Horace Logan tried to quiet the  frenzied audience and coined a phrase by announcing, “Elvis has left the  building.”

The Hayride was called the “Cradle of the Stars” for the many young talents  who appeared there before becoming famous and going on to the bigger, but more  staid Grand Ole Opry — Jim Reeves, Kitty Wells, Faron Young. Jimmie Davis,  Louisiana’s singing governor, was a regular. Gene Autry rode his horse onto  the stage.

“The Hayride was where new things happened, where people got started,” said  Warwick, who appeared on the program in 1959 after winning a talent contest.  “Shreveport was on the cutting edge back then. The Grand Ole Opry was too  conservative.”

The Opry was so conservative that it did not allow groups to have drums or  horns and let Williams and Elvis perform only after they became successful.

“They came to the Hayride, and when they were famous from being there, the  Opry took them,” Franks said. “But they always belonged to us.”

Today, with good times and casinos pumping money into the Shreveport economy,  the Auditorium has been restored and the Warwicks, who own a production  company and a record label, are hoping to bring the Hayride back.

The couple owns the rights to the Hayride name and their band performs  regularly, attracting fans of the old show. On April 3, a 50th-anniversary  salute to the Hayride will be performed at the Municipal Auditorium.

–copied from http://www.jim-reeves.com/hayride.html

Thanks so much to Clem, from Texas, for finding this video of the entire episode of the Dr. Medicine Woman show featuring Willie Nelson.