" The importance of the Hayride wasn’t its pay scale. Most of the performers were paid union scale, $12 a night, which barely covered their gas and food. The value was the exposure. With its potent fifty-thousand-watt station, KWKH’s signal alone provided invaluable reach, but the Hayride show was also carried by some two hundred other stations, from as far west as El Paso, north to St. Louis, east to Jacksonville, and down the coast to Miami. That meant a lot of potential record buyers. "

― , Johnny Cash: The Life