The Louisiana Hayride

The Louisiana Hayride premiered on KWKH-AM radio in 1948 creating a legacy and musical DNA that can be traced to today's modern music in America. The Louisiana Hayride was the brainchild of Horace Lee Logan, who first became a radio host on Shreveport’s KWKH-AM in 1932 at the age of 16. Because most of the talented country artists who got their first breaks on the Hayride—Hank Williams, Kitty Well

s, Webb Pierce, Faron Young—would eventually move on to Nashville, it was common to hear The Lousiana Hayride referred to as “the Grand Ole Opry’s farm team.” Logan, however, always referred to the Opry as “the Tennessee branch of the Hayride.”

In addition to giving Hank Williams his first wide radio audience in 1949 and then welcoming him back after the Opry fired him for drunkenness in 1952, Logan and The Louisiana Hayride also gave 19-year-old Elvis Presley a crucial break in October 1954. After a failed audition for the Grand Ole Opry, Elvis gave a knockout performance of That’s All Right (Mama) and Blue Moon of Kentucky on The Louisiana Hayride that set him on his path toward stardom. Many of the icons of music history performed on the Louisiana Hayride; Elvis, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, George Jones, Patsy Cline, Kitty Wells, Johnny Horton, Webb Pierce, Hank Williams Jr, Slim Whitman, Faron Young, Jim Reeves, Floyd Cramer, Sonny James and so many others.