Johnny Horton got his start with Abbott Records, but Abbott Records got its start with Johnny Horton. Legend has it that Fabor Robison started Abbott Records with the owner of Abbott Drug Store (on an investment of $400) in order to put out Johnny Horton's records after hearing Johnny play in front of Abbott’s drug store.. And it is also said that Johnny Horton claimed to have a part ownership stake at the beginning of Abbott Records. It was probably true only insofar as the first six releases on Abbott were Johnny Horton records. Johnny Horton and Fabor Robison staked their careers on each other. Not only was Johnny on Abbott Records, but Robison was also his manager.
Robison helped Johnny make the major step in his career of getting onto the Louisiana Hayride. The result was that Johnny remained loyal to the Louisiana Hayride and refused offers to go to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, and Johnny made Shreveport, the home of the Louisiana Hayride, his permanent home.
The good part about Robison being Johnny’s manager was that he had no loyalty to his own label. He took Johnny to Mercury Records, supposedly the first label to set up shop in Nashville, where he signed a contract and finally got good national distribution. He had a spectacular career after joining Columbia Records and starting his saga records, including “The Battle of New Orleans” and “North to Alaska.” He married Hank Williams’s widow Billy Jean Horton and nearly seven years after Hank Williams’s death in a car accident, Johnny Horton died the same way, early in the morning of November 5, 1960, on his way home to Shreveport, when the Cadillac he was driving was hit by a swerving pickup truck.
