Mickey Gilley

Born: March 9, 1936, Natchez, Mississippi. Died: May 7, 2022, Branson, Missouri. Country music singer and pianist, cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart and father of Mike Gilley (2) and Greg Gilley (2). He founded Gilley's, a nightclub in Houston, along with Sherwood Cryer in 1971, and played there often. By 1974, he began to be a regular on the national country charts, racking up almost 50 sides by 1989. Gilley's nightclub was so well known that it was featured in the 1980 film Urban Cowboy. Coincidently, the year the nightclub closed, 1989, was his last year on the charts.