Riding High

By Ian Mount/New York

Mickey Gilley stood with hands on hips in front of the smoldering wreckage of his Branson, Mo., music theater. It was May 11, 1993, a date that would be forever fixed in Gilley's brain. Twenty-four hours earlier, the country-music legend had received a call at his home in Pasadena, Texas, summoning him to the site. Upon seeing the charred ruins, Gilley, a showman to the core, with a diamond-encrusted "MG" necklace and absurdly thick hair, turned to a bandmate and asked, "How am I gonna keep you guys working?"

The answer turned out to be simple: perseverance and heaps of cash. Within three weeks, he found a temporary stage for his band. A year later, he had rebuilt his theater for $2.5 million--$1 million more than the insurance settlement. Says saxophonist and bandmate Norman Carlson: "He's always striving to make things work for all of us."

That line has the faint ring of a lyric in a sentimental country-music ballad--fitting for Gilley, 67, who has sung more than his fair share. Country-music fans remember him for his 17 No. 1 country hits and for inspiring the urban-cowboy trend in the 1980s--you may recall Debra Winger riding a mechanical bull at "Gilley's" in the 1980 movie Urban Cowboy. These days Gilley is still pumping out music (Invitation Only was released in May), playing gigs (about 225 concerts a year) and opening clubs (he licensed his name to a Gilley's that is slated to open this fall in Dallas). All this from a man who could have walked away from the business years ago with plenty of loot. "Until my health fails and people quit coming to hear me--as long as I can go out onstage--I'm going to continue working," says Gilley.

Raised in Ferriday, La., Mickey Leroy Gilley boasts two famous cousins: Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart. After moving to Houston at age 17, Gilley worked in construction until a meeting with Jerry Lee made Gilley think, "If he can do it, why can't I?" ("The Killer," as Jerry Lee was known, famously pulled a roll of cash from his pocket to stir young Gilley.) But it wasn't easy. For more than a decade, he played at a string of honky-tonks, earning a reputation as a solid journeyman pianist, albeit a clone of the cousin who had inspired him. "He was just a plain, old-fashioned, down-to-earth guy in those days, struggling to get a hit record," says Carlson.

Gilley's turn from small-time musician to big-time entertainer sprang from someone else's idea. In 1971 businessman Sherwood Cryer saw Gilley play and invited him to be a partner in a new club. In an offer that would change Gilley's life, Cryer said he would pay Gilley half the profits for playing six nights a week--and convinced the dubious musician that the club should be named Gilley's.

Something about the club and Gilley's evolving showmanship clicked. People flocked to hear his boogie-woogie ballads and honky-tonk anthems like Don't All the Girls Get Prettier at Closing Time? In 1974, after almost two decades of banging the keys, Gilley had his first No. 1 single: a sweet version of Room Full of Roses.

As for the rooms Gilley was playing, they were packed with mostly rambunctious cowpokes. Reckoning that the bar denizens wouldn't fight nearly as much if they could compete another way, Cryer rolled mechanical bulls into the establishment--in spite of Gilley's objections. The rest is movie history. Gilley burst onto the national stage with Urban Cowboy, a love story about an urban cowpoke and the girl who rides a mechanical bull better than he does. Set in Gilley's, the film featured the singer on the sound track and in the movie alongside stars John Travolta and Debra Winger.

But by the late 1980s, Gilley fell out of fashion; his last no. 1 single was in 1983. By 1989, his partnership with Cryer had disintegrated as the two battled over Cryer's decision not to gussy up the club. (Gilley won a $17 million lawsuit, though he saw only a small piece of that, including the club, which he gave to Pasadena to cover back property taxes.) Faced with a stalling career, at 53 Gilley decided to be one of the first country artists to open a theater in Branson. Once again, his entrepreneurial instincts proved dead on: Branson became a country-music Las Vegas, buzzing with regular visitors like the Oak Ridge Boys. Soon Gilley was playing two shows a day, six days a week, in his 950-seat theater and selling fans $32 videotapes of the show they had just seen.

These days Gilley claims he is semiretired, but it's hard to tell. Each week from March to December, he plays five shows of old and new music in Branson. The tourists change like the seasons, with middle-aged fans in the spring, families in the summer and seniors in motor homes in the fall. When Gilley is not there, he's on the road with his 11-member band. "The energy that made him want to play and perform and entertain still exists," says Jim Ed Norman, president of Warner Bros. Records Nashville and a producer of several Gilley albums. "It's a primal, core essence of what artists are." Gilley also owns restaurants in Houston and Branson and licenses his name to a Las Vegas venue in addition to the Dallas club.

Fortunately, he also happens to be a licensed pilot, which eases his effort to keep a tight schedule of gigs while watching over his sprawling empire. Every Thursday he flies 2 1/2 hours in his Beech C55 Baron from Branson to his home in Texas to spend the weekend with his second wife Vivian and to play golf with their son Greg. He has three grown children from his first marriage and four grandchildren.

For Gilley, home means relaxation. Were you to visit his spread, you would probably see him mowing the 20 manicured acres that surround his 10,000-sq.-ft. house with one of his three riding tractors--or you could possibly find him striding around his walking track. "I'm trying to get down to my original weight of 8 lbs., 3 oz.," jokes the country musician, who weighs 177 lbs.--2 lbs. above his actual goal. He walks at least 1 1/2 miles daily, and he tries to play golf "every day that ends with a y."

But as much as he enjoys home life and exercise, he's a compulsive entertainer who is pulled to the stage. This year he is sprinkling his show with four songs from Invitation Only, playing morning shows in October for early birds and even talking about opening another restaurant. Of course, Gilley claims he will retire--he just wants 10 more years. To those who know him, though, that's a conservative figure. "My guess is that one night while playing piano, he'll go to meet his maker," says Norman. "As long as one person will come to hear him sing, he'll keep playing."