Mickey Gilley is a country singer, and the cousin of both Jerry Lee
Lewis and the evangelist Jimmy Swaggart.
Born in Mississippi in 1936, Mickey, like his cousins loved music.
Jerry Lee used to sneak into black clubs, as
a kid, to hear what was then called “race music” i.e. African American styles
of music like R&B.
He played piano,
with a wild style, and great technical ability.
Mickey also learned to play piano from his cousin.
When Jerry Lee began to have massive success,
Mickey started his country music career in the later 50s.
He
was a very talented pianist, though not as good as Jerry Lee….
He had some hits and opened a club in Pasadena Texas, where country
music was played and there was a mechanical bull to give his customers
something of the rodeo experience. He
was doing well and over the 70s, he like other country artists began to sing crossover and pop country songs. One of
his best known hits was “The Girls all get prettier at Closing Time”, a song he
performs in Dukes of Hazzard…other hits included a cover of the Song “Stand by
Me” and “A room full of Roses.”
In 1980, his club was featured
in the Travolta film Urban Cowboy, where John Travolta played a young working
class man who works in an oil refinery by day and dreams of going back home to
the land.
The film brought a lot of publicity to his club, and Mickey’s singing
career continued successfully in the 1980s.
However in the later 80s, his stream of hits dried up, and he had some
financial problems. His club in
Pasadena had to close, but he later opened a theater in Branson Missouri. In 2009, he suffered an accident in moving furniture which left him
paralysed for a time, but with determination and physical therapy, he recovered,
though he wasn’t able to play piano…
He is still working, and has been married twice, having 4 children.
No comments:
Post a Comment