Mickey Gilley and Moe Bandy [VIDEOS]

Mickey Gilley has been ranked among the top 50 country music hit makers of all time. As a youngster, he learned to play the piano with cousins Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart, and together they sang boogie woogie and gospel music. At 17, Gilley moved to Houston, working construction during the day and singing clubs at night. In 1971, he opened Gilley’s in Pasadena, Texas, the world’s largest honky tonk.

With hits like “City Lights,” “I Overlooked an Orchard,” and “Don’t the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time,” people started to take notice of Gilley’s and the urban cowboy craze began to develop. Paramount studios decided to make a movie about the craze, with John Travolta and Debra Winger playing the starring roles. The movie, Urban Cowboy, was a success and Gilley’s flourished.

Bandy was one of the most popular country singers in the 1970s. His music consisted of songs about drinking, divorce, cheating, love and passion….all things that were most common in country music during that era. He was raised in San Antonio, Texas, and spent most of his teenage years on the rodeo circuit riding bulls and broncs. Once he left school, he became a sheet metal worker, singing in clubs and honky tonks at night. He made the Top Ten charts with hits “It Was So Easy to Find an Unhappy Woman” and “Bandy the Rodeo Clown.”