Twentieth century

By the 1910s, Huddie William Ledbetter - also known as "Lead Belly," a blues singer and guitarist who eventually achieved worldwide fame - was performing for Shreveport audiences in St. Paul's Bottoms, the notorious red light district of Shreveport which operated legally from 1903-1917. Ledbetter began to develop his own style of music after exposure to a variety of musical influences on Shreveport's Fannin Street, a row of saloons, brothels, and dance halls in the Bottoms. Bluesmen Jesse Thomas, Dave Alexander, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd and the early jazz and ragtime composer Willian Christopher O'Hare were all from Shreveport.
Shreveport was also home to the "Louisiana Hayride" radio program, broadcast weekly from the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium. During its heyday from 1948–1960, this program spawned the careers of some of the greatest names in American music. The Hayride featured names such as Hank Williams, Sr. and Elvis Presley, who made his broadcasting debut at this venue.
In 1963, headlines across the country reported that Sam Cooke was arrested after his band tried to register at a "whites-only" Holiday Inn in Shreveport.[8] In the months following, Cooke recorded the civil rights era song, A Change Is Gonna Come. The avant-garde noise punk band The Residents was formed in Shreveport in 1969.





Egyptian cotton sheets
radio controlled cars