The Louisiana Hayride Tonight Notes on Live Recordings (CD 2-20)
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1 2 BEAR FAMILY THE BOX WITH NO NAME by unknown authors [email protected] 3 OP & OC 2017 Bear Family Productions Ltd. First Edition All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or by a reviewer who may quote brief passages. 4 Contents Introduction by Martin Hawkins . 7 An Overview by Colin Escott . 10 Louisiana Hayride Timeline . 28 A Great American Music Story by Margaret Louis Warwick & Arthur Alton Warwick . 31 The Shows, The Performers, The Songs by Martin Hawkins . 45 KWKH Before The Hayrides Notes on studio recordings (CD 1) . 46 At The Louisiana Hayride Tonight Notes on live recordings (CD 2-20) . 60 Recalling The Louisiana Hayride by Frankie Miller . 168 Tracklisting CD 1-20 . 192 Alphabetical Listing Of Artists and live performances . 200 Credits . 209 (TOP ) Shreveport’s Municipal Auditorium, built in 1929, served as the broadcast venue for the Louisiana Hayride. (ABOVE ) Shreveport Mayor James C. Gardner and two civic leaders inspect the newly remodeled interior of the audi - torium in the mid-1950s. 5 The Louisiana Hayride cast in the late 1950s (FROM LEFT ): Ed Hamilton, five members of the Deep South Quartet, Sonny Harville, Felton Pruett, Dobber Johnson, Don Davis on bass, Tommy Tomlinson, Buddy Sepaugh, unknown, Margie Singleton, Bob Magee, Linda Brannon, Brad Ingles, Johnny Horton, Country Johnny Mathis, Ben Nardinna (HIDDEN ), Jimmy Lee, Jerry Kennedy, James O’Gwynn, unknown, announcer Frank Page, announcer Norm Bale, J.D. Crow, Jimmy Martin, Paul Williams, Terry Barford, Merle Kilgore, Tillman Franks, one of Johnny Sea’s musicians, secretary Connie Hall, Johnny Sea ( BEHIND HER ) and another one from Sea’s band. 6 INTRODUCTION by MARTIN HAWKINS ime was when for the most part it is a new experi - favourite, original Hayride style live the Municipal ence listening even to the well-known on throughout. Auditorium in T songs. Often a different tempo, a dif - We've chosen to set the context a lit - Shreveport, Louisiana was the place ferent emphasis by the singer, or a tle bit on the first CD before unlocking to be on a Saturday night for country stunningly unexpected instrumental the live music from the Hayride shows music fans. This box enables us to solo will elevate this music beyond on the next nineteen CDs. We thought immerse ourselves in the sights and what the listener may expect and it important to establish that the sounds of the late 1940s and the bring out a new picture of the artist. KWKH radio studios were used for 1950s when the Louisiana Hayride Sure, the sound quality varies here many years to record songs for the was broadcast from Shreveport radio and it is not always up to the level of music-loving public, in several ways, KWKH as one of the premier Saturday the Nashville studios of the day, but it before the station started to take live night radio and stage shows. The is still a highly listenable experience. feeds from the Louisiana Hayride Hayride prospered in those days be - Even this massive 20-CD box cannot stage show in 1948. Before and dur - fore the live post-War country and accommodate more than a small per - ing that time, the station made discs emergent rockabilly musics in which centage of the music that has sur - for broadcast over the radio – mainly it dealt were lost in the face of the vived from the show. For that reason, in the form of transcriptions of pre- standardised sounds that eventually we have focused on reflecting the recorded shows – and also commer - characterised Top Forty radio and overall balance of artists and styles. cial recordings made at the behest of nationally-broadcast television. We have not attempted to include local and national record companies. Here are as many of the stars and everything recorded on any particular Before that, back around 1930, W.K. other talented artists who performed performer, even the likes of Johnny Henderson, the owner of KWKH, on the Hayride as we can sensibly fit Horton, Elvis Presley, or George made a number of unusual discs pub - into a box. Their long-buried musical Jones as that would mean much of the licising his views and his station. Ex - performances are brought to life lesser-known but good and fascinat - amples of all these pre-Hayride in more or less chronological order ing music would have remained unis - recordings are included here. interspersed with some of the an - sued. If more audio had survived from This set is dedicated to Margaret nouncements, intros, comedy rou- the earliest days, it would have been Lewis Warwick and Alton Warwick, tines and mistakes that went to make included of course but enough sur - who have worked so hard down the up a live show in those days. vives to give a clear picture of those years to keep the Hayride rolling, and Many of the songs will be familiar. pioneering shows. As the years pass, to everyone whose real-life or imag - Singers tended to perform their best we can hear the music change but we ined memories of the Hayride burn as and current hits after all. But many can also hear some of the favourite brightly as theirs. other songs will be long-forgotten and Hayride songs and much of the Martin Hawkins, Reissue Producer 7 8 (RIGHT ) McCrory’s department store, Shreveport, 1948. 9 AN OVERVIEW by COLIN ESCOTT THE LOUISIANA HAYRIDE RADIO AND RECORDS DISCOVERED COUNTRY MUSIC IN 1922. HELLO WORLD! Records had been around for forty years; radio had been around nearly as long, but was only one KWKH began as one of many hobbyist stations. Originally WDAN, it was launched on June 30, or two years old as a commercial entity. Because radio was a local medium, it needed to understand 1922 before switching call-letters to WGAQ in July. It was a 10-watt station operated by car dealer and serve its market, hence its early embrace of country music in the southern states. By common William Patterson, who brought in newspaper owner John Ewing, industrialist W.K. Henderson, assent, the first radio barndance aired on WBAP, Fort Worth, on January 4, 1923. The first with and hotel owner Jack Tullos. The earliest evidence of country music programming comes from a some longevity was Chicago 's WLS Barn Dance (later the National Barn Dance), debuting on April reference in the 'Shreveport Times ' to a broadcast of the Old Fiddlers Club of North Louisiana on 19, 1924. And then, on November 28, 1925, WSM Nashville launched its Barn Dance, soon known Friday evening, March 14, 1925. Henderson eventually bought out Patterson and, on September as the Grand Ole Opry. In 1932, part of the National Barn Dance went out nationally on NBC 's 25, 1925, renamed the station after himself by buying the KWKH call-letters from a station in Geor - Blue Network, and in 1939 part of the Opry went out on NBC 's Red Network. The word was out: gia. hillbilly music sold advertising, not just locally but nationally. In the years immediately after World War II before television entered nearly every home, radio stations great and small throughout the Born in Bastrop, Louisiana on August 6, 1880, Henderson worked in his father's machine shop country staged barndances. Some lasted just a few weeks while others struggled on gamely in the before getting into the car repair business. After his father 's death in 1919, he assumed the presi - face of television and then rock 'n' roll. By 1960, nearly all of them had gone. dency of the Henderson Iron Works and Supply Company, soon adding the Henderson Land, Tim - ber and Investment Company and an extensive private telephone system. Oil had been discovered Before World War II, hit country records didn 't mean too much in terms of royalties. The value of in north Louisiana and Henderson 's company supplied the hardware. Eighteen miles outside Shreve - a hit was that it enabled the singer to graduate from a local radio barndance to a second-tier show port, he built a compound, Kennonwood, and, as Clifford J. Doerksen reported, it was "complete and then perhaps to one of the half-dozen preeminent radio barndances, like the Opry, the National with its own power plant, a one-thousand-watt transmitter, studios on the first and second floors Barn Dance, WWVA 's Jamboree, the Mid-Western Hayride, the Big D Jamboree, or the Renfro Val - of his mansion, and dormitories and a commissary to accommodate technical personnel and ley Barn Dance. From that platform, a singer could book showdates in the station 's listening area. visiting guests. A third studio, for remote broadcasts, was installed in Henderson's offices in The major barndances broadcast with 50,000 watts, blanketing most of the country after dark, so Shreveport. All three studios were outfitted with special phonographs designed for the high-fi - the allure was powerful. delity broadcast of phonograph records. " Although it was one of the post-World War II barndances, KWKH’s Louisiana Hayride soon became In 1930, Henderson sold KWKH to his own Hello World Broadcasting Company. By then, he was known as the Cradle of the Stars. The Opry signed more top artists, but no other show discovered a pioneering shock jock with KWKH as his personal soapbox. Only on-air at night when he had the as many as the Hayride.