Tribute to the Rockabilly Legends: Live on the Louisiana Hayride
The late decades of the teens and early twenties brought us the high-kicking flappers, James P. Johnson’s “Charleston,” Duke Ellington’s ragtime, Bessie Smith’s blues and George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” The thirties and forties brought big band music with Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and of course, Benny Goodman. But, the 1950s brought a new musical movement created from a mixture of cultures never before experienced. At its foundation were two 50,000-watt clear channel radio stations broadcasting live performance radio shows across a music-hungry rural America every Saturday night. WSM in Nashville, Tennessee, is the home of the regal Grand Ole Opry, and KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana, boomed the Louisiana Hayride to millions of faithful listeners. These legendary weekly live radio shows featured hillbilly, country and bluegrass music stars whose influence is as alive today as it was fifty years ago.
Two of the greatest musical icons of the Twentieth Century, Hank Williams, Sr. and Elvis Presley, evolved from the hallowed stage of the Louisiana Hayride, and their massive impact literally rocked the world. Tillman Franks brought Hank and Elvis to the Hayride, and in his own voice tells how this happened.
Jerry Naylor
