Along for the ‘Ride: Alton Warwick Remembers His Wife, Maggie

On the afternoon that Mr. Alton Warwick, widowed husband and business partner of Margaret “Maggie” Lewis Warwick, sat down with All Y’all and LPB to share his memories of The Louisiana Hayride, only seven months had passed since Maggie’s death. For decades, he and Maggie had worked side-by-side to promote the Hayride as a potential economic driver for Shreveport. Her absence loomed large over our conversation. Maggie had been a fixture in Alton’s life since his youth in Shreveport; he’d met her through his record-producing, electric guitar-playing cousin, Mira Smith, owner of Shreveport’s Ram Records. Alton saw firsthand how the music industry limited the opportunities of female performers and producers like Smith and Lewis. “Girl singers were just to sing,” Alton said. “They weren’t supposed to make waves, they weren’t supposed to produce records. They were not supposed to lead the band. But her and Mira, they were not going to go quietly into the night. So, in Nashville and all of those places, they made a mark in a man’s world.” What began as a conversation about country music history quickly became an oral history of a match made in country music heaven. The All Y'all podcast is supported by Marilynn's Place, Rhino Coffee and Maccentric. Please support these outstanding local businesses! Want more conversations like this? Help us by sending a few bucks our way at Paypal.me/AllYall Like All Y’all on Facebook http://facebook.com/allyallblog Follow All Y’all on Twitter http://twitter.com/allyallpodcast Follow All Y’all on Instagram http://instagram.com/allyallpodcast