MICKEY GILLEY

Having grown up in H-town, I was always aware of who Mickey Gilley was and what a famous place Gilley's Club was.  I listened to Mickey during the 70's and 80's and Gilley's was one of the places that country music listeners liked to hang out at or at least visit.  Big name country western performers would perform at Gilley's regularly. It started out being able to seat 3,000 people but was enlarged to seat 7,000.  Gilley's was registered in the Guiness Book as the largest honky-tonk (that's Texas talk for bar) in the world.  Well, of course it would be the largest, it is in Texas for crying out loud! :)

Mickey now has a theater in Branson.  He is 78 years old but still does a show here 5 days a week and I had heard from a couple of people that the show was really good.  I decided that I wanted to go to the show.  After all, how many more years will Mickey be around or be able to do the show?  Boy, was I glad I went.

Mickey Leroy Gilley (born March 9, 1936) is an American country music singer and musician. Although he started out singing straight-up country and western material in the 1970s, he moved towards a more pop-friendly sound in the 1980s, bringing him further success on not just the country charts, but the pop charts as well.

In 1970 Gilley opened up his first club in Pasadena, Texas, called Gilley's Club, replacing the club that was there called Shelley's Club. The club later became known as the "world's biggest honky tonk." He owned "Gilley's Club" with former owner of Shelley's Club, Sherwood Cryer, who asked Gilley to re-open the bar with him. The club portion of Gilley's burned in 1990, and later the rodeo arena portion was razed in 2005 to make way for a school.

Gilley's was the main set for the shooting of the movie Urban Cowboy starring John Travolta and Debra Winger.  It also housed the original mechanical bull.

In 1974, Gilley recorded a song that originally was only supposed to be recorded for fun entitled "Room Full of Roses", written by Tim Spencer of the Sons of the Pioneers. The song was released by Astro Records that year, and then Playboy Records got a hold of the single, and got national distribution for "Room Full of Roses". From then on, Gilley was signed to Playboy Records working with his long-time friend Eddie Kilroy. "Room Full of Roses" became the song that put Gilley on national radar, hitting the very top of the Country charts that year, as well as making it to No. 50 on the pop music charts.

By 1980, Gilley decided to come up with a new sound, in order to bring him country crossover success so many other Country singers were having at the time. His career was given a second go-around when one of his recordings was featured on the box-office-selling movie Urban Cowboy. The song was  "Stand by Me". As the movie was becoming successful, so was "Stand by Me". The song rose to the top of the Country charts in 1980, as well as hitting the Top 5 of the Adult Contemporary charts, as well as making the Pop Top 40. The song turned Gilley into a pop-country crossover success, yet, despite it being his only Adult Contemporary hit, it did become one of his signature songs.  Overall in his career, that spanned 15 years of chart success, Gilley has had 17 No. 1 hits on the Country charts.  Some of his more popular songs are: True Love Ways; You Don't Know Me; Bring It On Home To Me; That's All That Matters; Window Up Above; Headache Tomorrow (Or A Heartache Tonight); The Girls All Get Prettier; and Fool For Your Love.

In July 2009, Gilley was helping a neighbor move some furniture when he fell with the love seat falling on top of him, crushing four vertebrae. The incident left him temporarily paralyzed from the neck down, but with some intense physical therapy he was able to walk again and return to the stage a year later. However, he still lacks the hand coordination necessary to play the piano. He did tell the audience that he is hoping to be back on the piano next year.  He has been practicing and feels like he is making great progress.  He can't stand for a long time.  He has a stool that he sits on when he talks and occasionally when he sings.  But, for someone that wasn't suppose to walk again, he did an awesome job.  He sang ALL of his hit songs.  It was great.

If you were ever a fan of Mickey's or a fan of Urban Cowboy, you will love the show.  Go see it if you are ever in Branson.

Mickey singing Room Full of Roses

These are his Doo-Wop girls

Mickey doing a little dancing

The famous signature hat is still looking good

Picture of "world famous" Gilley's club

EUREKA SPRINGS

Yesterday, I went to Eureka Springs.  I have not been to Eureka Springs since I was a teenager.  I know, that was a long, long time ago!  The weather was beautiful and was a great day to be outside, so, Mr. W, DWW, Barb, and I went to check out the town.

For those of you who have been there, you know the streets of the town are very narrow.  The streets are also very uphill and downhill. So, the whole time I'm walking down the street, I'm thinking about having to walk up the street. That can put a damper on your tour of a town!

There are many shops, cafes, candy stores, and other specialty stores along the way. I did find that the prices in most of the shops were somewhat on the ridiculous side of high.  That's my opinion.  If you shop in the stores that are on the ends of the streets instead of in the middle of the streets, you will find some of the same merchandise at a more reasonable price. 

I got there close to lunch time.  After a little strolling through a few of the shops, we decided to eat at the Basin Park Hotel restaurant.  It actually was more like a café/bar but most of the tables were up on the 2nd floor and outside on a deck that went around 3 sides of the building.  When the weather is nice, I love to eat outdoors at restaurants. I had one of the best Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches that I have ever had. Mr. W's hamburger looked pretty darn good too!

Me and Mr. W at our table

The hotel sign from our table

 

The street below from our table

We wanted to take the tour of the tunnel system.  It is only offered at 4:00 each day.  Since we had time to kill, we decided to check out a few shops and then drive to where the passion play takes place.  There is a huge statue of Jesus there.  This statue is called Christ of the Ozarks because it overlooks the hills.  Remember me saying that I had not been to Eureka Springs since I was a teenager? Well, my youth choir from church made the trip and we sang in front of the statue before the play began.

Eureka Springs has a scenic loop, so after we left the passion play area, we decided to drive the scenic loop.  There were a few photo ops along the loop.

At 4:00, we met our tour guide at the park in town to begin our tour.  How many of you knew there was a tunnel system in Eureka Springs? That's what I thought. According to local history, two major streets in downtown Eureka Springs underwent considerable re-engineering in the year 1890. Main Street was the first official "street" in town, built in a low level gulch, alongside a small spring-fed creek. It suffered from frequent runoff problems and quickly earned the nickname "Mud" Street, hence the need for improvements. The second street in town requiring attention was Spring Street, as it was also becoming a main thoroughfare for carriage traffic.

One of the easiest ways to catch a glimpse of the Eureka Underground is to peer through the metal grate in the sidewalk in front of The Vintage Soda fountain shop on Main Street. If you have a flashlight or a camera with flash, you should be able to see some of the old windows from the original level of the storefront.  We actually looked through the grate and then walked down to enter into the tunnel system below.

There are actually 2 sets of tunnels.  One is the creek routing tunnel that is the lowest set of tunnels and it routes the creek through the town. The sidewalk tunnels were formed by the people of Eureka Springs wanting to raise the city.  The creek routing tunnel that runs beneath the buildings on the East side of Main Street is actually older than the sidewalk tunnels created in 1890. It was hand built of native stone and in many cases "dry stacked" without any mortar. Over the years, the concrete storm drain system for Main Street was developed and tied into the old creek routing tunnel. It continues to feed into the underground creek to this day. The sidewalk tunnels were created when the street levels of Main and Spring Streets were raised. These tunnels exist beneath the sidewalks. Most have been walled off at property lines, creating individual caverns that are only accessible via the adjacent building basements.  You can walk along Spring Street or Main Street and see glass blocks embedded in the sidewalk, purportedly placed to shed light on the hidden tunnels below.  Our tour guide was raised in Eureka Springs and she and other children of the town use to play in the tunnels.  They could see to run and play in the tunnels because of the light shed from those glass blocks.  The tour was interesting and I would recommend it.

On our way back to Branson, we noticed a beautiful sunset about to take place.  We pulled into Mill Creek Public Recreation Area to try and capture the sunset in pictures.  Not only did we find a place to take pictures but we also found a great campground.  It is a Corp of Engineers park and all of the sites are paved and almost all of them are on the water and have amazing views.  One of the campers there said that they close the park down at the end of October and reopen in March.  If you are in the area, this would be a great place to stay.  Water and electricity only.

Here are a few more pics. Enjoy!

THE LIVERPOOL LEGENDS

Once upon a time, back in the 1960's, 4 British kids showed up on the Ed Sullivan show and thus began what is now known as Beatlemania.

For those of you close to my age, the Beatles began a revolution in rock and roll. I would say they changed rock and roll forever.  Here's a bit of trivia. Did you know that they started calling themselves the Beatles as a tribute to Buddy Holly and the Crickets?  John thought Buddy Holly was the best rock and roll singer ever and after Buddy Holly died, he wanted the band to somehow honor him. See, you learned something new.

Their songs at first were along the same lines as the rock and roll of the era, but later, their music became more of a mix of rock and classical with a little psychedelic thrown in.  They were 4 great musicians and songwriters.  You could even say that there probably will never be such 4 great musicians and songwriters together in one band that will greatly influence rock and roll again.

When I was a teenager, I loved the Beatles.  But, I didn't love them half as much as my friend Wendy.  Remember Wendy?  My friend who went to school with me, kindergarten through high school?  Wendy's Mom was a British war bride.  She had the best accent. I could sit for hours and listen to her talk. It was great.  Wendy's Mom wanted Wendy to know a lot about the British culture and so Wendy was exposed to a lot of things "British".  The Beatles happened to be one of those things. It was LOVE at first sound with Wendy.  I don't mean just the "like" kind of love. I mean the deep, always in my heart, kind of love.  I have never met a bigger, more dedicated Beatle fan in my life!

Anyway, as you know from my previous blog, Wendy has always been so sweet to fix lunch/dinner for us when we visit on our trips to Branson.  So, Mr. W and I decided to buy tickets for the Liverpool Legends' show and take Wendy. Last night was the night.

The Liverpool Legends are 4 guys who are very talented musicians and who dress up to look like John, Paul, George and Ringo.  The show starts on the night they appeared on the Ed Sullivan show and continues through their time together and also includes a few of their individual songs that they each recorded after their break-up.  Louise Harrison, George's sister, has given her stamp of approval on these 4 guys and this show.  She narrates some of the history given through a video seen in the show.  They even have all the weird crazy things that John did on stage at concerts down and things that George did with his feet on stage.  Very well studied ol' chaps!

Wendy came to the RV park and we had dinner at the 5W.  Mr. W's brother, DWW and wife, Barb went with us.  You could tell from the start that Wendy was excited.

It's funny how when the music started, a whole theater full of people started singing right along.  No one had forgotten the words.  We were all of the age that we can't remember where we put our glasses or keys or the remote control, but we could remember all the words to all the Beatle songs.  We may not be the young adults or teenagers that we use to be, but something about hearing all those songs, makes you remember when you were.

Barb, Wendy and me

DWW and Barb in front of one of the Beetles that they have for the Beatles!

me and Wendy

The marquis out in front of the Caravelle Theater
 

Here's Ed telling us that he has "a really big shew tonight".

George playing a section of a song as lead guitar.

Paul, George, Ringo and John (Notice that this Paul is left handed also.)

From the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band era

Going to the Abbey Road era

The guy who played John, sang and spoke almost exactly like John.  He sounded so much like him that you almost thought it was his voice.  The guy who played Paul did not sound like Paul when he was singing solo but sounded good when harmonizing, in the first half. But, in the second half of the show, he put is all in it and sounded more and more like Paul when singing.  The guy who played George was really good singing and an even better guitarist. This was their last show for the season in Branson.  They will be traveling around the country doing shows but will be back in Branson sometime in 2015.  If you get a chance and you are of the 55 to 65 age group, and even if you aren't, it is well worth it to go see them. I know they will be in Fredricksburg, TX sometime before the first of the year and will be in Edinburg, TX in late January.  All you winter Texans might want to check on that show.

After we left and got back to the 5W, I found myself singing and humming Beatle songs the rest of the night.  I turned on Pandora and listened to more Beatle songs.  While writing this blog, I decided to see if I could write a paragraph using titles of Beatle songs. (I know, you're thinking that I have w-a-y too much time on my hands.)  So here goes.....

"It's Been A Hard Day's Night" so "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Let's "Get A Ticket to Ride" on a "Yellow Submarine" to "Penny Lane."  We can visit a "Paperback Writer" named "Eleanor Rigby." We can "Come Together" and "Twist and Shout" and "Help!" each other out. But "Wait!" "I Want to Tell You" "There's a Place" "In My Life" to love you. "Do You Want to Know a Secret?"  "Yesterday", I got a "Little Help From My Friends." Now everything is "Getting Better" because  I know you'll still love me "When I'm 64."  "P.S. I Love You."

OK, now you try your hand at it.  There are lots more Beatle songs to choose from.  Leave me your version in the comments!  If it asks you to sign in or create a Google account, just choose the option to sign in as anonymous.  Be sure to leave me your name at the end of your "Beatle Paragraph" so I'll know who the smart, flower children are! :)

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah
Here comes the sun
And I say it's all right

CORN HOLE

Mr. W's brother, DWW, and his wife, Barb, are in Branson.  They recently bought a new travel trailer and decided to spend 3 weeks in Branson with us.  Yay! They arrived last Friday and granted, we have not done much in the way of blogging material. The weather here has been beyond A-W-E-S-O-M-E! You could not ask for any better.  We have mainly been hanging around the RV park, just getting out to run to the store or go eat.

Yesterday, we drove to Harrison, Arkansas to have lunch and when we got back, Mr. W wanted to set up a "friendly" game of Corn Hole.  Now some of you may call this Bean Bag Toss, but in the "serious" circles, it is called Corn Hole. The object of the game is to get the bean bag in the hole.  If you do, you score 3 pts.  If you get the bean bag on the board, you get 1 pt., as long as none of the bean bag is hanging off.  Since the board is slanted, sometimes the bean bag that is on the board will eventually slide off the board before your turn is up. Ugh!

In our travels, we have witnessed many, many Corn Hole games/tournaments going on with lots of cheering and sighing going on.  Yesterday was no different.

Mr. W and DWW challenged me and Barb.  We were going to "whoop" them (or so we thought)!  Each team took their side and each team was given one practice round.  Barb and I were first.  I don't think we scored any points.  How did that happen?  We are better than that.  It must have been just an "off" round.

Barb taking her turn at throwing the bean bag.

Now it is the guys' turn.  They scored 9 points.  What? OK, now, it is on.  No stinking boys are going to beat us!

 

DWW throwing the bean bag.

Well, maybe the first game they beat us.  So, let's go the best 2 out of 3.  Well, let's just say that the second game went into extra innings. Dang those boys!

By this time, our friends Mickey and James had walked over and James was up for a game.  This time, Mr. W and I took on DWW and James.  Mr. W and I won!  We are the champions, we are the champions, we are the champions!  Sorry, I got a little carried away.  And I wonder where my children get their competitive nature???

James taking his turn.

Afterward, we decided we better sit down and relax for a while.  Those games of Corn Hole can be tough!  I think our neighbors were a little jealous that we were having so much fun.  But, then again, we are a fun group. :)

On another topic, Treasure Lake, the place we are staying, started a "Veteran's Wall" and for $50 you can have someone's name, what branch of the military they were in, and the years they were in the military put on the wall.  Mr. W and DWW decided to have that done in Pepa's memory.  Pepa was a World War II Veteran. When we arrived, we checked the wall and sure enough, there was his name and information.  Pepa would have liked that.

Look at the bottom left corner.

BILLY DEAN

I went to see Billy Dean and the Steel Horses tonight at the Starlight Theatre.  Man, am I glad I did!

Billy Dean was a hit country music singer who was really rising to the top back in the 1990s.  He had several songs that made it into the top 10 of the Billboard Country Countdown.  He is also a well known songwriter.  He also had some guest appearances on some TV shows and tried his hand at acting.

He grew up in Florida and moved to Nashville when he was 20 years old.  He wrote songs and sang in bars at night.  He was discovered when he appeared on the Ed McMahon show - Star Search.  He wrote and later recorded the song, Somewhere in My Brokenheart.  Randy Travis first recorded the song and was so successful with the song, Billy Dean quipped that he didn't have to work on Fridays anymore because of how well the song did. 

Things began to fall apart for him in the late 1990s.  His record company dropped him and the acting career tanked too.  He also was in the middle of a divorce.  His personal and professional life was in shambles. 

In 2005, he decided to take all the money he had and record an album.  He and his manager got in the car and started driving to radio stations to beg them to play cuts from the album.  It worked and his music career started up again even if it wasn't to the level of success as it had been before.

This year, Billy, is the new act in Branson.  I have been to a lot of concerts in the past 5 years and many have been "big name" country music stars.  Billy Dean's show was every bit as good as most of those concerts.  He has a great voice, his band is awesome, and his new music is right on with where country music is right now.  His show started at 7:30 and wasn't over until almost 10:00.  You certainly get your money's worth.

Another great thing about Billy's show is the comedian that use to be at Pierce Arrow is now with him.  If you have never seen this comedian, you have missed the best comedian around.  This guy is hilarious.  (Look up Bro. Cecil Watkins on YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5rXuzOzplo )

If you get the chance to see Billy Dean and the Steel Horses, go.  You won't be disappointed.

(I forgot my camera so I had to use my phone to take pictures.  Ugh.)

Billy with the comedian, aka in this skit as Ima Payne....