It was Horace Logan who first uttered the catch-phrase
 "Elvis has left the building..."

Elvis has left the building

It was Horace Logan who first uttered the catch-phrase...
 "Elvis has left the building..."

Former Louisiana Hayride producer and  emcee Horace Logan - better known as the man who coined  the phrase... "Elvis has left the building" - died October, 2002 aged 86 in Southwest Texas.  It was Logan who introduced radio listeners to the Louisiana Hayride when the country show hit the airwaves in its first broadcast in 1948. 

The Louisiana Hayride boosted the careers of 25 artists - including Elvis - into national prominence.

Logan began in radio when he was 16, after winning a contest to become an announcer on KWKH-AM. In 1998, he authored Elvis, Hank & Me, a memoir of his decade (1948-1958) as the original producer of the legendary Hayride, a country music show performed before a live KWKH audience in Shreveport 's Municipal Auditorium.

In 1956, as he tried to quiet a frenzied Hayride audience after another Presley performance, Logan announced, "Elvis has left the building."

"He was in charge of booking artists on the Hayride. I give him lots of credit for making the Hayride what it was," said Tillman Franks, a veteran Shreveport musician and songwriter who was a close friend of Logan 's. Franks became producer of the Hayride when Logan retired.

Logan was a colorful personality and Hayride emcee who "came out all dressed in black like a cowboy with a black hat and actually wore pistols," said Maggie Warwick, Shreveport singer and songwriter. Logan booked her on the Hayride after she and her sister won a talent show in Texas. Her first appearance on the Hayride was in 1957.

Horace Logan wrote a wonderful book, with chapters on Hank Williams, Jim Reeves, Elvis Presley, Johnny Horton & Johnny Cash. I highly recommend it to all country music fans