While I would agree this album isn’t essential, it is still better than most of what I hear on country radio these days, and I would hope that Cracker Barrel and Country Rewind Records continue to unearth these gems. Mickey’s vocals, however, are always excellent, except on “Drinkin’ Thing” where he does not tackle the song with a sufficient sense of irony. The sound of the band is a bit pedestrian, sometimes resembling a good bar band. There are no strings on the album but occasionally you’ll hear keyboards or synthesizers at work where strings might be expected. “Please Love Me Forever” (Cathy Jean and the Roommates) “Someday (You’ll Want Me To Want You” (Elton Britt) His first three singles, “City Lights”, “I Overlooked An Orchid”, and “Room Full of Roses”, are here, as are the following songs (original artists in ( ) : Mickey is in good voice throughout and this is a bunch of really good songsĪt the time these songs were recorded, Gilley did not have a long list of hits to call his own, so this album features mostly covers (for that matter, his first three hits were covers). The sound is just a bit thin at times and some of the tempos are rushed compared to Mickey’s commercially released recordings. That is not to say that this is a bad album far from it. While I am not a fan of strings and choral accompaniments, they do have their uses and this album could use them. While the Cracker Barrel Connie Smith and Faron Young offerings were exciting news, this album doesn’t measure up as the recordings still could use still more production. (son of famed big band leader Les Brown) to add some additional musicians and production. Many years later Country Rewind Records brought the recordings to Les Brown, Jr. There are no strings and no vocal choruses. They feature Mickey Gilley on vocals and piano and apparently the four other musicians in his band. Recorded after the initial success of “Room Full of Roses” and “I Overlooked An Orchid”, these recordings were probably meant to be a musical ‘souvenir’ to be sold at live performances. Then came the successful Urban Cowboy movie.Ĭracker Barrel Restaurants, in conjunction with Country Rewind Records, have combined to make available these early Mickey Gilley recordings. His first singles on Epic were less successful than his Playboy singles. Mickey Gilley ran off a string of hits between 19 for Playboy Records, at which time his contract was purchased by Epic Records. In fact Mickey was 38 years old before he was regarded as more than a local artist. Born in 1936 in Natchez, MS, a second cousin to a pair of Ferriday, LA, fireballs in Jerry Lee Lewis and evangelist Jimmy Swaggart (Jerry Lee and Jimmy are first cousins to each other), Mickey probably was somewhat accustomed to being overlooked. It probably isn’t fair to describe Mickey Gilley as a second tier artist since he had seventeen Billboard #1 hits and another seventeen songs that reached the top ten, and was the name behind the most famous country music nightclub ever.
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