From:   "Shaun Mather"  
Date:  Sun Aug 3, 2003  5:17 pm
Subject:  BTBWY - Horace Logan

Horace Logan

Born - 3 August 1916, Monroe, LA
Died - 13 October 2002, Seadrift, TX

Horace "Hoss" Logan was a colourful character who saw more than his share of
once in a lifetime shows at the Louisiana Hayride.

The radio impresario became an announcer on KWKH-AM in Shreveport, La. in
1932 at the tender age of 16. It was in 1948 when he made his name,
launching the station's "Louisiana Hayride," which he staged before a live
audience in Shreveport's Municipal Auditorium.

The three-hour Saturday night show was broadcast over CBS radio to 191
stations across 13 states in the South and quickly became a serious rival to
the established Grand Ole Opry from Nashville. The Opry got a bit shirty
with the the Hayride, a point which pleased Logan no end. In his memoir,
Elvis, Hank and Me he makes countless references to their jealousy. Whereas
the Opry wasn't interested on a performer unless he had a few chart hits,
the Hayrise was happy to encourage newcomers. It was a policy that enabled
him to give the first big breaks to the likes of Elvis, Johnny Cash and
Faron Young among many others. It also earned the Hayride the monikor
"Cradle of the Stars".

Long before these youngsters hit his stage, Logan had played home to the
wayward son of Dixie, Hank WIlliams whose drinking antics had seen him lose
favour in Nashville. Horace wasn't so fussy and on September 24th, 1952 he
signed Hank to a three year contract at $200 a Saturday night. A few weeks
before Hank's death, Logan remembers seeing Hank standing on the side of
Market Street in Shreveport, with a gun in each hand, shooting at the
passing cars. Too much cowboy music me thinks....

When he signed the 19-year-old Memphis truck driver Elvis Presley to a
contract, he paid him $18 for each Saturday night appearance. Once Elvis had
made it big he paid the show $400 a week not to appear. Elvis bought out his
contract and agreed to make a final appearance on December 12th 1956. The
sell-out show was moved to Shreveport's Coliseum, which held 13,000 people.

Whilst some in Nashville looked down at the Hayride, calling it the "Junior
Grand Ole Opry" Logan used to turn the joke around, calling the Opry "the
Tennessee branch of the 'Hayride.' Nice one Hoss. His importance to the show
was tangible, and after he left the show in late 1957, the "Hayride" started
a downward spiral, closing it's doors not long after.

After Logan left Shreveport he moved to California, taking some protegees
with him, Bob Luman, David Houston and James Burton among them. AFter that
came Florida and then a decade in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, producing
another important show, the "Big D Jamboree". He retired to Seadrift, Texas,
in 1995 with his wife Linda, before dying in Victoria, Texas of pancreatitis
and acute respiratory distress syndrome at the age of 86.

Recommended reading;

Elvis, Hank And Me - a good read with some neat tales, but Horace never let
the facts get in the way of a good story.