At the end of September, I posted the below list in the Ouachita Parish History Facebook group.
I decided to compile a list of ads I found in the newspapers for performances at the local high schools between 1940 and 1967 when the Civic Center was built. I was INCREDIBLY surprised at who came through the area! Remember, the local high school auditoriums were the biggest spaces available at the time. You even had circuses and magicians perform there! I had to stop writing down all the gospel groups that came through! It seems there was a gospel singing show every couple of months or so! This is by no means at all a comprehensive list!
Ouachita Parish High School: The stars of the Grand Old Opry came through on a regular basis. Minnie Pearl, Uncle Dave Macon, Eddie Arnold and his Tennessee Plowboys, the Oak Ridge Quartet (I lost count of how many times they performed in the area!), The Jordanaires, Little Jimmy Dickens and the Stamps Quartet all played here.
Monroe Colored High School had Carroll’s Gym which was a stop on the Chitlin Circuit. We know T-Bone Walker, Louis Armstrong, Moreland and Carter, The Basin Street Boys, Nina Mae McKinney, Wings Over Jordan Choir, Pee Wee Crayton, Illinois Jacquet, The Blackwood Brothers Quartet, the Statesmen Quartet and Mahalia Jackson all performed here. So did Etta Moten, who originated the role of Bess in Porgy and Bess on Broadway.
West Monroe High School: Wally Fowler and the Oak Ridge Quartet, Hank Snow, Elvis Presley with Bill and Scotty and the Duke of Paducah, Dale Hawkins, The Champs, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Speer Family, the Statesmen, The Blackwood Brothers, Stamps Quartet, Jake Hess and the Imperials, Martha Carson and Charlie Louvine, Johnny Paycheck, Mark Dening and Marty Robbins.
Neville High School was the biggest music venue of its time. Bob Hope, Frances Langford and Jerry Collona and Errol Flynn later on, came through selling war bonds. Roy Acuff and His Smoky Mountain Boys, Minnie Pearl, Cowboy Copas, Pee Wee King, Lew Childre, String Bean, Gene Autry and his horse Champion, Tommy Dorsey, The Louisiana Hayride with Hank Williams, Sr., Kitty Wells and Johnny & Jack, Spike Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis appeared in the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, Eddie Cantor, Famous Statesmen, Rangers Quartet, Blackwood Brothers Quartet, Les Brown, Guy Lombardo, Wayne King, Ernest Tubb, Minnie Pearl, Ted Lewis, Hank Williams, Jr., Slim Whitman, Little Jimmy Dickens, Horace Heidt, the Boston Pops Orchestra, Martha Carson, Sammy Kaye, Lonzo and Oscar, Yehudi Menuhin, Red Sovine, Carl Smith, Goldie Hill, The Four Freshmen, George Morgan, Vienna Choir Boys, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Al Hirt, the Brothers Four, the Righteous Brothers and Porter Wagoner. The Cerebral Palsy Telethon was here in May of 1963, hosted by Michael Landon, “Little Joe Cartright” himself!
Ouachita Parish History Tidbits 