Classic Tune of the Week 6

And now for something completely different…

I have chosen a country /pop tune called “You Don’t Know Me” for this week’s classic song. The song has been recorded dozens of times by many different artists. The version I like best was recorded in the early 1980s by country star Mickey Gilley.

Gilley is best known as the owner of the world famous, for a time anyway, “Gilley’s” night club / honkytonk in Pasadena, Texas (just outside Houston). Gilley had long been a second tier country star when the film “Urban Cowboy” came out in 1980. “Gilley’s” was immortalized in the movie and mechanical bulls, boots, cowboy hats, and western shirts with pearled snaps became all the rage. The movie also gave a huge bump to the careers of Charlie Daniels, Johnny Lee, and, most notably, Mickey Gilley.

Gilley took advantage of his good fortune by recording numerous songs that cracked the Billboard Top 100 Country Chart. Several of these songs, including “You Don’t Know Me”, crossed over and made their mark on the Billboard Pop Chart as well.

Mickey Gilley has sometimes been dismissed as a light weight due to the fact that most of his biggest hits were covers of songs written and made well known by other artists. However, for a time during the early 1980s he was as big a star as there was in country music.

Hit the video bar (close up photo of Mickey Gilley in his cowboy hat) to hear the song. You may want to hold the cursor over the photo to make sure you get the right video as several songs are represented by the same photo. If this photo does not appear immediately just be patient as the videos will cycle through. The video consists of a photo of Mickey Gilley behind an old record player spinning a 33 rpm album. Not too high tech to be sure but this is about the song and not the production value, after all. As usual, ignore any extra videos that have tagged along.

My best…