Tillman Franks, a country musician who played on the first Louisiana Hayride broadcast and later managed other country musicians’ careers, died at the age of 86.

Franks started playing guitar while attending Byrd High School in Shreveport and switched to string bass during World War II, while stationed on the island of Saipan and playing in a band he had formed. Its members included a then obscure banjo player named Pete Seeger.

As a musician, songwriter, manager and producer, Franks did everything from playing backup to booking talent to lending money and supplying groceries.

The walls of his office were hung with records he helped write, pictures of people he helped launch including a young Elvis Presley and Hank Williams and awards and letters.

As a bassist, he performed with country great Webb Pierce, whom he later managed, and with Harmie Smith and the Ozark Mountaineers. Other clients included Claude King, Slim Whitman, David Houston, Jimmy and Johnny, Billy Walker, Tony Douglas, The Carlisles and Billy Walker.

The U.S. postage stamp of Hank Williams shows the singer wearing one of Franks’ suits, he told The Associated Press in a 1999 interview.

“He was so poor when he was starting out he didn’t have a suit,” said Franks, who booked Williams for many of his early gigs. “So we cut one of mine down to fit him.”

Franks went on to manage Johnny Horton, who sang “The Battle of New Orleans,” writing or helping to write many of Horton’s songs, and Newman.

“I’m making a living today because of the songs I wrote for Johnny Horton,” he told the AP.

Franks was badly injured in the wreck that killed Horton. In spite of his own injuries, when Horton’s record company “dragged its feet” on providing money Horton’s family was owed and needed, Franks flew to Washington, D.C., where Johnny Cash was performing, recalled Jim Case, a country musician turned booking agent.

“Johnny Cash called ‘em. He didn’t ask them, he told ‘em” to send the money, said Case, of Nashville, Tenn.