Published Monday, April 5, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News Gold reunion rocks country music's Louisiana Hayride Fifty years after the legendary Louisiana Hayride first took to the stage, hundreds of the weekly music show's original regulars returned to a renovated Municipal Auditorium Saturday night for some hillbilly, Western swing, blues, gospel, jazz, Cajun and pop music. Willie Nelson was back. So was Hank Williams' daughter, Jett Williams, and others who worked behind the scenes on the show, which boomed forth each Saturday evening from 1948 to 1960 courtesy of 50,000-watt KWKH Radio in Shreveport, La. In its heyday, the Hayride transformed country and western music by showcasing the fertile and culturally diverse talents of the region still known as the Ark-La-Tex. Nelson, Johnny Cash, Slim Whitman and Johnny Horton got their starts there. Country Music Hall of Famer Jim Reeves worked as an announcer until a singer didn't show up one night and he was asked to fill in. A youthful Elvis Presley honed his style there for the union minimum of $18 a show. Saturday's notable no-show was former Louisiana Gov. Jimmie Davis, who was hospitalized earlier in the week with liver problems. Davis (``You Are My Sunshine'') turns 100 in September. Members of the original Hayride alumni appeared Saturday in suits, although cowboy boots frequently peeked out of the trousers. Many younger musicians wore jeans, gold chains and long hair streaming from beneath their cowboy hats. ``I don't know what people then would have made of this group,'' said Merle Kilgore, who once toted gear for Williams and has been his son Hank Jr.'s manager for 14 years. ``For a time there, we didn't even wear cowboy hats. If you showed up in one, it meant you were from the sticks.'' ``It was a wonderful place,'' said Hunter Huff, who appeared in 1954 with his four-man dance band. ``That crowd set you on fire and made your heart throb.''
