The Duke of the Prairie

Screen star/musician John Schneider performed at the Pine Prairie Boggy Bayou Festival Saturday night, May 8. He was accompanied by fellow musician Joe Hudson. As the two waited to take the stage, they practiced inside Schneider’s motorhome parked near the stage where an auctioneer’s voice echoed across the fairgrounds. As they strummed their guitars and jotted down last-minute music notes, Schneider sat comfortably, casually thumbing chords, a warm smile on his face.
Schneider went to Boggy Bayou at the request of his good friend, Lon McWhorter of Mac’s Carnival. “We love him and his son, Luke, to death, and he asked us to come. When friends ask, you say yes. It’s important to honor your friendships,” said Schneider. “Lon and Luke and Mac’s Carnival have done so much for us. I love it. This is great. This is really what we’re supposed to be doing.”
A long-time musician and singer, Schneider has been making music since the early 1980s. His first song, a remake of Elvis Presley’s “It’s Now or Never,” peaked at #4 on the U.S. country charts in 1981. In 1985, he had a #1 country album with “A Memory Like You.” He’s had a string of top 10 country hits with several singles going to #1. On January 29, 2019, at a filming of the TV show “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” Schneider was inducted live on the air into the Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame.
As he continued to strum his guitar, Schneider praised Charley Rivers who performed at Boggy Bayou earlier in the day. “Oh, my gosh, he’s great! We want to have him at Bo’s Extravaganza.” Schneider has put on Bo’s Extravaganza four times now. The event is billed as an old-fashion, outdoor car show, carnival, celebrity signing event along with performances by John Schneider & the Hazard Nation band. The name Bo is for his character in the classic TV show “Dukes of Hazard.”
Kix Brooks was a guest on the first year of the extravaganza. “Wonderful friend,” Schneider said of Brooks. “I asked him to do it. He said yes. He came in on his way back from Japan and showed up and did it.” The next year, Kid Rock stopped to perform on his way back to Nashville from his rehearsal in Detroit. The next year the Bellamy Brothers performed. The extravaganza takes place in Holden, Louisiana but also takes the event on the road.
When asked about his future projects, Schneider said he is currently working on the album for “Poker Run,” a sequel to the movie “Stand On It,” a “Smokey and the Bandit” tribute film. Schneider wrote, directed, and stars in both films. He added they have just finished filming the principle photography for “Poker Run,” but now they have “some fun car stuff to do.” He is also planning on a third installment of the series.
Schneider is also recording four songs for a Hallmark Christmas movie in which he will be co-starring with Reba McEntire. The two will be playing an estranged husband-and-wife country duo who are brought back together to do a U.S.O. show. “It’s really great. I’m very excited about it,” said Schneider. “I met Reba when she first came to ‘town.’ She’s wonderful. It’s pretty cool to be coming back full circle with that.” He said they will be in her Nashville studio this week.
Also, Schneider is working on a project with Wynonna Judd. “All of the sudden, not just country music, but specifically two very powerhouse women in country music and I are joining together for the first time in decades, so something’s up. The wagons are circling.”
Schneider said Louisiana has welcomed him with open arms since he moved here in 2011. “Louisiana has been great,” he said, grinning. He is particularly grateful to his friend, the late Marvin Henderson of Henderson Auctions. “Wonderful man, great friend. If it were not for him, I would not have stayed. I came to do a “Dukes of Hazard”-related event in a motorhome and stayed in his driveway for a year. I played my guitar, wrote a couple of screenplays.”
It wasn’t long before Schneider set up his own independent studio and his drive-in theatre, the Stars N’ Cars Drive-in Cinema. The drive-in is so popular, Schneider said, “We’ve done all these movies. We had Kid Rock in Holden, for crying out loud. Nobody talked about it before. Now, everywhere we go, people say, ‘So, how’s the drive-in going?’”
When it comes to writing, Schneider said he loves to do the “car stuff,” like for “Stand On It,” but admitted, “It’s not the stuff I write when I just sit down and get in touch with my writing self. My writing self says, ‘How can bad things happen to bad people?’ I want really bad things to happen to bad people, and I want them to be so bad that they’re funny,” he laughed. He strummed his guitar and mused over notorious villains in history. Schneider is no stranger to playing villains. He stars in Tyler Perry’s crime drama/soap opera, “The Haves and the Have Nots,” which is on its eighth season. Schneider plays Jim Cryer, power-hungry patriarch of the Cryer family. “I’m a bad guy in that show,” he said, smiling wryly.
As showtime drew near, Schneider and Hudson discussed what songs to play and took turns strumming chords and practicing a chorus or two. “Wait ‘til you hear him,” said Schneider of Hudson, who lives in western Kentucky, in Muhlenberg County, home of the Everly Brothers, Merle Travis, and James Best, who co-starred with Schneider in “Dukes of Hazard.” Hudson is an award-winning guitarist, having won the Horizon Award in 2009, President’s Award in 2014, Co-Thumbpicker of the Year in 2015, and Thumbpicker of the Year in 2016 by the fans and voting members of the National Thumbpickers Hall of Fame.
Schneider hit some more chords and said, “I really question the E in there.” He strummed it a couple more times and added, “It’s gotta be G.” Hudson chuckled, saying, “Well we can do G. It’s your song.” The two played a little more, their music barely drowning out the sound of the auctioneer outside the motorhome door that soon opened up with Schneider’s wife and Charley Rivers stepping inside. “Hey, you’re fantastic!” Schneider said to Rivers, who no doubt will soon be part of Bo’s Extravaganza.
While Schneider is most famously remembered as Bo Duke, he boasts a long acting career in film and television. Some of his other notable acting roles include Superman/Clark Kent’s adoptive father in the TV series “Smallville;” a recurring role on “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman;” several episodes of “Desperate Housewives” and “Nip/Tuck;” and competed on “Dancing With the Stars.” Schneider has a long film history as well, including the movies: “Eddie Macon’s Run;” “Exit to Eden;” “Snow Day;” “Conjurer;” as well as films he has written and directed such as “Inadmissible,” “Smothered,” and “4: Go.” He owns John Schneider Studios, an independent studio on 58 acres with two 5,000-square-foot sound stages, in Holden.