December 18, 2017

Prepare to Time Travel Through Louisiana’s Version of the Grand Ole Opry

Country music fans will find plenty to like in this massive music collection.

/Bear Family Records

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Album Review

Various Artists
At the Louisiana Hayride Tonight
Bear Family

Bear Family Records

The massive collection At the Louisiana Hayride Tonight, which offers more than 25 hours of music on 20 discs, is obviously not for the casual listener. But it’s a fascinating archaeological dig. Based in Shreveport, the “Louisiana Hayride” radio show was a more rural and less-polished competitor to Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, but it didn’t lack for talent. Among the 167 artists featured on the more than 500 tracks, recorded from 1948 to 1960, are such giants as Elvis Presley (a whopping 15 cuts), Hank Williams, and Johnny Cash, as well as longtime country stars like Kitty Wells, Faron Young, George Jones, and Wynn Stewart. There are amazingly few duds. Combined with an enthusiastic live audience that adds an extra shot of energy on many tracks, the occasionally rough but always listenable recording quality heightens the sense of immediacy, making this intriguing set the next best thing to a trip in a time machine.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate