Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Make Better Decisions, #8 In A Series

I heard a story today that blew my mind.

On a local radio station, there was an interview with Bobby Patterson. Patterson, born in 1944, is a regionally popular soul singer who always deserved a wider audience and more fame than he ever received.

Patterson talked about his entire career, but what stunned me was when he talked about Shreveport (my arch nemesis). He said that there was a time when Shreveport was the regional hub for music in the South, bigger than Nashville (country) or Memphis (blues). I think he was talking about the mid 1950s, because he mentioned The Louisiana Hayride (Elvis Presley performed on the show/tour, among others).

He said that Shreveport would have been the music capital of the South, but that no one was willing to build the recording studios and associated infrastructure. Memphis and Nashville did, so musicians drifted away from Shreveport to those cities instead.




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