[1][3] For many years, Gilley lived in the shadow of his well-known cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis, a successful rock and roll singer and musician in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Gilley's family moved to the east side of Houston, Texas, in the 1940s, where he attended Galena Park High School.
They sang both boogie-woogie and gospel music, but Gilley did not become a professional singer until Lewis hit the top of the charts in the 1950s.
"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.
Songs like "The Power of Positive Drinkin'", "Just Long Enough to Say Goodbye", and "My Silver Lining" just made the Top Ten.
[1] "Room Full of Roses", "True Love Ways", and "You Don't Know Me" also hit the Billboard Hot 100; additionally, "Bring It On Home To Me", "That's All That Matters", and "Talk to Me" bubbled under (at 101, 101 and 106, respectively).
Not only was his chart success fading, but Gilley had a series of financial problems that led to the closing of his club in Pasadena, Texas.
[1] In 1988, Gilley signed with Airborne Records and released an album, Chasin' Rainbows,[1] which resulted in his last Top 40 country hit in "She Reminded Me of You", which made No.
[5] Gilley turned his attention to Branson, Missouri, where he built a theater, which was a soon-to-be boomtown for the country music industry.
In 2012, Gilley signed a Branson-based vocal group, Six, to a three-year lease to perform in his theater, with an option to buy it when the contract expired.
In 2018, Gilley teamed up with longtime friend Troy Payne to record his last studio album Two Old Cats, a CD containing 13 classic country duets.
[citation needed] Gilley was double first cousins with both Jerry Lee Lewis and evangelist Jimmy Swaggart of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
[8] 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 after intense physical therapy he was able to walk again and return to the stage a year later.
[11] On March 2, 2002, Gilley, along with his two famous cousins Lewis and Swaggart, was inducted into the Delta Music Museum Hall of Fame in Ferriday, Louisiana.
David Smith at the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music's Ohrstrom-Bryant Theatre at Bonnie Blue's Roadhouse Classic Concert.
[15] The "Gilley" was first organized in 2009 by a group of urban cowboys brought together by their love for golf, country music, and rhinestone shirts.