Mickey Gilley, the man who personified “urban cowboy,” died Saturday. He was 86.
Gilley died in his adopted hometown of Branson, Mo., according to a statement on his Facebook page. His cause of death was not announced.
The entire urban cowboy movement in the 1980s can be traced through Gilley, who was a hit-making singer, honky tonk owner and even occasional actor.
Gilley’s namesake club in the Houston suburb of Pasadena inspired and was featured prominently in the 1980 film “Urban Cowboy,” starring John Travolta. Gilley’s cover of “Stand By Me” was included in the film’s soundtrack.
Even before a wider audience met Gilley, however, he was a country music star who had seven songs top the U.S. Country charts in the 1970s, including “Room Full of Roses” and “Don’t the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time.”
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Born March 9, 1936, in Natchez, Miss., Gilley grew up across the Mississippi River in Ferriday, La., with his cousins — including Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart.
After seeing Lewis’ rock ‘n’ roll career take off, Gilley thought to himself: “I can do that.”
“I saw how well he was doing in the music business and I’m thinking if he can do this, I can too,” Gilley told the Santa Fe New Mexican in 2019. “I thought I could go out on the road, play piano, and do the same thing. I’d just cut a record and I’d become a star. It didn’t happen, but I thought that at the time.”
Instead, he ended up opening Gilley’s in Pasadena in 1971. His co-owner, Sherwood Cryer, decided to put a mechanical bull inside the club. Gilley thought it was crazy. It became iconic, and was copied by similar establishments nationwide.
Gilley often performed at the honky tonk. He was initially an opener for bigger acts, but by the end of the ‘70s, he was the big act with hits like “Window Up Above” and “She’s Pulling Me Back Again.” His cover of Sam Cooke’s “Bring It On Home to Me” also went No. 1 on the country charts.
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Esquire magazine got word of the giant club with a mechanical bull inside it and wrote a story about Gilley’s. It caught the attention of Hollywood, which set “Urban Cowboy” at the club and cast Travolta and Debra Winger in the lead roles. Gilley also appeared in the film as himself.
Gilley never hesitated to credit Travolta for giving his career a second act. He would have 10 more No. 1 country hits in the 1980s, including three in 1980 alone.
“I was in Nashville and I had this guy get on the elevator and he says, ‘Hey, Gilley, I want to thank you for what you did for country and western wear,’” Gilley said in 2019. “I says, ‘Me? It was John Travolta that did that, not Mickey Gilley.’”
With a rich catalog of songs and an endless appetite for touring, Gilley performed for decades even after he finished recording studio albums. When a business dispute and a fire led to the destruction of the original Gilley’s, he moved his operation to Branson.
A 2009 spinal injury during a freak moving accident mellowed Gilley, but he remained a consummate entertainer until the end, even playing 10 shows just last month.
“Back then I was young, I was successful, and I wasn’t paying any attention. I was going so fast through life, and like I tell some people, it’s the old cliché: sometimes you get too close to the forest to see the trees. That was me,” Gilley said in 2014.
“I was going through life like a perfect storm so to speak. And all of a sudden, when I fell and hurt myself, it dawned on me, ‘This could be my last day on Earth. You’d better straighten your act up.’”
