Mickey Gilley: 1936 - 2022

1936 - 2022

The news was released within the last hour that the country music community has lost another legendary figure. Mickey Gilley passed away today at the age of 86. March 9, 1936 - May 7, 2022. I like his singing and if I knew he was going to be on a TV show I'd always watch his performance. I saw him in concert only one time. He appeared at the Clark County Fair in 1990. My grandparent's and I went to the Fair and we sat next to a long-time fan of Mickey's who told us a lot of information about his career as well as her favorite songs. We were familiar with Mickey's songs but the more dedicated of fan told us a lot more about him. My grandparent's were aware that Mickey was a cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart. I had no idea about it, at the time, until the fan told us. I recall that Mickey sang practically all of the songs of his that I was familiar with. "Paradise Tonight", the duet he did with Charly McClain, was performed with one of Mickey's harmony singers. I don't want to definitively say that he closed the show with "Don't The Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time" but I think he did. He did a lot of boogie-woogie piano solo's in between the songs. The photo that I chose to include in this blog post shows Mickey Gilley in what a general audience might remember. Mickey had a successful string of country music hits throughout the 1970s, including several number one hits, but the Urban Cowboy movie shot his career into the pop music mainstream. The movie was mostly set inside Mickey's huge bar, Gilley's, in Pasadena, Texas. Mickey appeared in the movie and contributed songs to the movie's soundtrack. Johnny Lee, a frequent performer at Gilley's, was catapulted to stardom in 1980 as a result of his participation in the Urban Cowboy soundtrack with "Lookin' For Love" and "Cherokee Fiddle". The soundtrack included a 1978 hit from Mickey titled "Here Comes the Hurt Again" and a new recording, "Stand By Me". 

Mickey's rendition of that particular song (a previous pop/rhythm and blues hit for Ben E. King) become his biggest cross-over hit. In addition to hitting the top of the country chart in 1980 it reached the Top-30 on the pop driven Hot 100 and the Top-10 on the Adult-Contemporary chart. In fact, four of Mickey's single releases appeared on Billboard's Hot 100 pop chart. After "Stand By Me", his second highest charting Hot 100 pop single is his rendition of "You Don't Know Me", which hit number one on the country chart in 1981 and reached the Top-20 on the Adult-Contemporary chart as well. Mickey had 6 consecutive number one country hits on the Billboard country chart during the 1980-1981 time frame. His first single release of the decade, in 1980, was "True Love Ways" and he followed that chart-topper with 5 more. The single that broke the string, "Tears of the Lonely" peaked in the Top-5 here in America but it did reach number one on Canada's country music chart. Mickey would have three additional number one country hits on Billboard taking us through the second half of 1982 and into 1983: "Put Your Dreams Away", "Talk To Me", and "Fool For Your Love". The latter being his final solo single to reach number one on Billboard's U.S. country music chart, with his duet with Charly McClain in the late summer of 1983, "Paradise Tonight", becoming his final chart-topper on Billboard's U.S. country music chart. "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" and "Too Good To Stop Now" hit number one for Mickey in Canada in 1984. Mickey's final Top-10 hits arrived in 1985 and 1986...with the nostalgic "Doo Wah Days" becoming the final Top-10 of his career. He had a Top-20 country hit in 1987 with "Full Grown Fool" and a Top-30 country hit in 1988 with "She Reminded Me of You". 

Epic Records, in 1980, released this compilation album on Mickey titled Encore. The Encore series of albums were label-wide...all recording artists signed to Columbia's various record labels had an album titled Encore released on them. The Encore album they released on Mickey, as you can see, heavily promoted his night-club without using it's name on the front of the album. On the back of the album Mickey is surrounded by mostly cowboy hat wearing girls. A couple of them are wearing tops that state: "I rode the bull at Gilley's". The bull, of course, is the mechanical bull...shown prominently on the front of the album. The mechanical bull became a staple in all kinds of country-oriented bar room's and night clubs attempting to emulate the ambience of Gilley's place. It was called the world's largest Honky-Tonk. Mickey co-owned the club with Sherwood Cryer. The club opened in 1971 and once Urban Cowboy hit theaters and became a massive box-office hit Gilley's night club in Pasadena, Texas became a super destination for locals and out of State tourists. The club branched out into television and radio productions...numerous country music singers stopped by and recorded concert performances for a local radio series tied to the nightclub and there was also a television program that originated from Gilley's for awhile. Gilley's became part of most tour stops for Country and Adult-Contemporary performers. The night-club burned to the ground in 1989 leaving some music critics and historians to point out that a night-club so synonymous with 1980's country music should happen to burn to the ground at the close of the decade. 

Mickey, following this period of his career, moved on and opened up a theater in Branson, Missouri...and he remained a fixture in Branson for the next several decades. An accident while helping move furniture in 2009 impacted his performing career and he spent a year or more recovering and in physical therapy. The accident left him paralyzed and although he did the rehab and physical therapy there were lingering effects for the rest of his life. In January 2018 Mickey and his son were involved in a car accident while traveling from Texas to Missouri. They never made it out of Texas, though, and neither were seriously injured. Mickey and Johnny Lee, during this point in time, had been on something of a national reunion tour with an Urban Cowboy theme. The movie, in 2015, turned 35 and by 2020, of course, it hit 40. The two had performed an extended reunion series of shows at Mickey's Branson theater for the last several years. The news of Mickey passing away today at the age of 86 seems surreal. He released numerous singles...and among my many, many favorite Mickey Gilley recordings is the cleverly titled "The Power of Positive Drinking". It was a Top-10 hit for him but it wasn't one of his signature songs and so it's sort of fallen into obscurity. I saw him sing it on an episode of Hee Haw and it became an instant favorite...