A brush with a legend

Phil Hagen

Thursday, Oct. 9, 1997 | 9:44 a.m.

It was 1949 in Shreveport, La., and Merle Kilgore was 14.

It was 5:30 a.m., outside a local radio station, and Hank Williams -- the original -- drove up in an beat-up Chrysler Town-and-Country, its wood sides rotting and its engine smoking. Hank parked and went around to the passenger side. Wrestling with a guitar in one hand, he tried to help his pregnant wife, Audrey, out of the car with the other.

Merle and his friend Ed had learned the only way for them to get into the "Louisiana Hayride" show was to carry instruments for the musicians. So they raced to Hank's rescue.

"Hey, hey, what's going on, boys?" Hank said as they rushed up.

"Hey, Hank, elevators don't work till 7 o'clock and they won't let us in the studio," Merle said, bumping Ed away from Hank's guitar.

"Wait. You mean you can't go up unless you got an instrument?"

"That's right. Listen, Hank, I know everybody down here and I can tell you who's who. I know all the ropes," Merle said.

Hank looked the future manager of his future son in the eye, pointed to his guitar and said, "Grab it, Hoss."

So that Saturday night during the "Hayride," Hank sat backstage on a chair while Merle critiqued everybody in the show. The Bailles Brothers were the big act; Hank had just scored his first Top 10 record with "I'm a Long-Gone Daddy."

"Now here's your main competition, the Bailles Brothers," Merle said. "They are hot."

"Oh, I know them," Hank said.

After the encore and the applause from the small audience died down, Hank got up, turned and looked at Merle.

"And I never shall forget what he said," Merle recalls. " 'I'll eat 'em alive.'

"He went on and he did. When he sang 'I'm a Long-Gone Daddy' and got those knees a rockin', they went crazy."

After a few months with the "Hayride" -- long enough for Hank Jr. to be born in Shreveport -- Hank hit it big with "Lovesick Blues" and went to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Merle went on to high school.

Hank had monstrous success in Nashville. But his monstrous drinking habit and unpredictable ways led to his firing from the Opry. By late 1952, he was back at the "Hayride" in Shreveport, to see if he could sober up.

It was Thanksgiving break, and Merle strolled into a little cafe across from the radio station. There was a guy dressed in black, with a black hat on, bent over smoking a cigarette. Merle thought it just one of those bums who hung around that part of town.

"Merle, ain't you gonna speak?" the man said.

He looked up and it was Hank.

"You gonna carry my guitar Saturday night at the 'Louisiana Hayride'?"

"I'll be there, Hank."

"OK, Hoss."

That Saturday night, a big black Cadillac pulled up and Hank got out. He said to Merle: "Grab the guitar," and he walked up the steps.

"That was the last time I saw him," Merle recalls. "He was in real bad shape."

Hank died on New Year's Day. He was 29 years old.