Unbeknownst to many, for nearly three decades Shreveport was known as “The Record Center of the South.” The man who was single-handedly responsible for Shreveport earning that designation was Stan Lewis, the 2003 recipient of OffBeat’s Lifetime Achievement Award given to a member of Louisiana’s music business community.

Born in Shreveport, Lewis was raised in a close-knit Italian family that ran a grocery store. A hustler as a youth, at the age of 19, immediately after World War I...