This was Country

My Facebook friend Michael Beam posted an old Hank Williams song, Honky Tonk Blues, earlier and it made me start thinking.
Northwest Louisiana was really a hub for country music - real country music - back in the day.
Hank Williams played at the Louisiana Hayride, heck, Hank Jr. was born here.
In 1966 my brother owned a service station right smack on the Bossier Strip and I used to work for him some on the night shift.  Of course, it was a 24 hour operation.
One of his other employees was Harmie Smith, who, with his Ozark Mountaineers, was on the very first Louisiana Hayride.  Harmie was older, and lived just off East Texas Street.  He had some great stories.  He would talk about Hank Williams, how he would show up so drunk at the Louisiana Hayride that they had to prop him up and walk him onto the stage.  "And he would sing like a bird", Harmie would tell me.
Old friends would come over to the service station to see him when they were in town, people like the Wilburn Brothers.  I was there when they showed up.
Harmie went on to DJ at KENT radio in Shreveport and died a couple of years later.

I can't remember the exact year, maybe 1967 or 1968, the Hayride ended it's long run at the Municipal Auditorium.  I went to some of the last shows and they were great.
I got to hear Ferlin Husky singing Snow White Dove, Sonny James singing Young Love and Running Bear.  Marty Robbins sang El Paso (posted below), and the Statler Brothers opened for Johnny Cash singing Flowers on the Wall. 
Johnny Cash and June Carter were amazing performers, they could electrify an audience.  They sang, among others, Jackson, which I have posted below.
I have a lot of younger friends who claim to love country music, but I don't think any of them would know a good country song if it walked up and kicked them in the ass (yes, I can say that, it's my blog).
This was country.

The Bossier Strip Part 2: Red River Babylon

Vivian native and mystery writer Eric Wilder agreed to share some of his memories of the Bossier Strip with the readers of My Bossier.

Red River Babylon
While growing up in north Louisiana, I wasted many hours at a place known locally as the Bossier Strip. Billed as the largest bit of neon between Las Vegas and Miami Beach, this three-mile row of nightclubs, restaurants, liquor stores, and striptease joints had it all.
Probably the biggest and most popular nightclub was Sak’s Boom Boom Room, later known as Sak’s Whisk-a-go-go. Clad in flashing neon of reds and yellows, the building looked like a rocket under full launch from Cape Canaveral. There was always live music of all varieties along the strip, but Sak’s provided the biggest venue to the biggest soon-to-be-famous artists.
The thing I remember most about Sak’s was the bikini-clad go-go dancer suspended in a cage above the dance floor. There was no nudity but a distinct aura of sex abounded along with the loud live music, strong drinks and uninhibited dancing. I saw many acts and a friend recently reminded me of the comedian and singer Rusty Warren performing her bawdy ballad Knockers Up.
The Bossier Strip prospered because it had a captive audience – the men and women of Barksdale Air Force Base, the largest SAC base in the world. Even the smallest of clubs had live music, along with the mystique of illegal gambling and prostitution, courtesy of the Southern Mafia.
Today, the “Strip” is mostly history, replaced by legal gambling in gaudy riverboats moored along the Red River between Shreveport and Bossier City. Many music venues still exist, along with the palpable undercurrent of sex and danger that provided the place with an excitement like no other, and will likely never disappear.

The Bossier Strip

For those who aren’t old enough to remember, I intend to do a couple of blog posts on the Bossier strip. This was suggested by a regular commenter who goes by the non de plume of Realist and is a great idea. I have a few recollections that I can share, and hopefully some other people will chime in.
The Bossier strip ran from the foot of the Texas Street bridge where the old Hurricane Lounge was located. It continued out to roughly Swan Lake Road where the donut shop is now.
The strip consisted of nightclubs and bars, with a few restaurants and motels thrown in.
Everyone ended up their night (at about 2 in the morning) at the Kickapoo on the corner of Benton Road and East Texas Street. The Kickapoo was a restaurant and motel.
People would order up some steak and eggs and begin the sobering up process, but there was a party atmosphere in the restaurant as the wee hours waned on.
Entertainers from all of the clubs would come there too and mingle with the other customers. It was a heckuva good time!
Let it suffice to say that I knew three or four high school boys who would make the trek out to Sak’s Boom Boom Room on a regular basis. (I know there are a couple of Mamas looking down from heaven saying ‘I knew it!’)
There you would get a tiny glass of beer for $1 and sip it while you enjoyed the live bands. Most of the clubs had live music, and some pretty good entertainers appeared out there.
At the Boom Boom Room we used to go hear Wayne Cochran and the CC Riders. Cochran was fairly well known and made a pretty good niche for himself. The video is very representative of what he did.
I think what we enjoyed most was when he would do Sam the Sham’s Wooly Bully. He could tear that song up.
Note: At the time, you could purchase beer at the age of 18, you had to be 21 for hard drinks. Not to say that we didn’t go there before we were 18, if you behaved yourself and had a buck you were in. I never heard of anyone being ID’d. How did they get away with it? Well, that’s another story for another day. In the meantime, enjoy the outrageous Wayne Cochran.