Johnny Horton - Louisiana Hayride

Louisiana Hayride

During September 1952, Horton acquired a full-time band, the Rowley Trio from Nederland, Texas. Featuring Jerry Rowley playing fiddle, his wife Evelyn playing piano and sister Vera (Dido) playing bass or guitar, they were working at KFDM in Beaumont following some gigs backing Lefty Frizzell. While playing in Beaumont, Horton and Robison heard the Trio and were sufficiently impressed to offer them a job touring. They started driving Johnny to their engagements, but he kept stopping to fish and hunt, so they soon bought him his own car with which he met them at the various venues. The new foursome recruited Bob Stegall but still termed themselves The Singing Fisherman and the Rowley Trio, before changing the name to Johnny Horton and the Roadrunners.

Louisiana Hayride had been playing for more than four years when Horton joined its cast, and during this time he helped many careers including those of Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Webb Pierce and Bob Luman.

Horton was, by now, a Shreveport resident. His marriage didn't survive the increasing touring and Donna relocated back to Los Angeles. He was amenable to a reconciliation, but was unwilling to go back to the West Coast. During August, Louisiana Hayride welcomed back Hank Williams, only 28 years old but banished from Nashville's Grand Ole Opry for what some considered as his drunkenness and unreliability. On October 19, Williams married Billy Jean Jones, the daughter of a local policeman, in front of a paying audience at New Orleans' Municipal Auditorium. On one occasion during the time Billie Jean and Hank were married, Horton talked to the couple backstage, and at that meeting, Hank predicted that Billie Jean would one day marry Horton. He remained a Hayride member until his death.

By New Year's Eve, Hank Williams was dead. He had died in the back seat of a Cadillac traveling to a show in Canton, Ohio. Horton and the Rowleys were driving home from a gig when they heard the news by radio. They were in Milano, Texas and it was there after a show at Austin's Skyline Club (the same venue as Williams' last show) that Horton was killed seven years later in a car accident.