(written by Keith Stegall & Stuart Harris)
Mickey Gilley (#1, 1982)
A native of Wichita Falls, Texas, Keith Stegall is a third cousin to
the late Johnny Horton. He made his performing debut at age eight and
sang and played music from that point on, all the way to adulthood.
After moving to Nashville in September of 1978, Stegall found work at
April/Blackwood Publishing Company.
He wore many hats there
while learning his craft and songwriting was especially productive for
him. Keith regularly contributed many of country music’s hit songs
during that period, including “Let’s Get Over Them Together” by Moe
Bandy & Becky Hobbs (rising to #10 on Billboard’s country singles
chart), Leon Everette’s “Hurricane” (#4), Eddy Raven’s “She’s Playing
Hard To Forget” (#10), Glen Campbell’s “A Lady Like You” (#4) and
another Leon Everette record, “My Lady Loves Me (Just As I Am)” (#9).
Stegall also penned Dr. Hook’s pop hit “Sexy Eyes” as well as Al
Jarreau’s “We’re In This Love Together.” Stegall even released a couple
of albums himself, which produced two hit singles – “California” (#13)
and “Pretty Lady,” which reached #10.
Interested in working
behind the scenes as well, Keith co-produced (with Kyle Lehning) Randy
Travis’ first #1 hit, “On The Other Hand” in 1986. Since 1990, Stegall
has been best-known in country music circles as Alan Jackson’s producer,
guiding dozens of his singles and albums to the upper rungs of the
Billboard country charts. Keith also briefly served as George Jones’
producer in the late ‘90s and helmed Jones’ highly-acclaimed,
CMA-nominated “Choices” in 1999.
Before all that, though,
Stegall’s song “Lonely Nights,” (performed by Mickey Gilley) which Keith
co-wrote in 1981, became the only one of his compositions to reach the
top of Billboard’s country singles chart. During his time at
April/Blackwood Publishing, he had multiple duties with the company –
everything from dubbing and delivering tape copies during the day to
writing songs in the evening. Roger Murrah served as Keith’s mentor at
April/Blackwood and Stegall wrote “Lonely Nights” on Murrah’s piano.
Stegall had a couple of verses started when Stuart Harris came in to do
some paperwork around 8:00 at night. Keith said, “Let me show you what
I’ve got going on this thing,” and they went into Roger’s office, sat
down at the piano in there and knocked out the rest of “Lonely Nights”
in just a couple of hours. Tony Brown produced the demo for Stegall and
pitched it to Mickey Gilley’s producer Jim Ed Norman, who cut it on
Mickey in a matter of days.
Gilley thought “Lonely Nights” was a
sensational song and he began singing it in his Las Vegas concerts at
such venues as Harrah’s, the MGM Grand and Bally’s even before the
single was released. Audience reaction to the tune was tremendous and
Mickey knew that when the record finally hit the streets, he’d have
another big one on his hands. “Lonely Nights” cruised to #1 on
Billboard’s country singles chart in its twelfth week, on February 6,
1982, marking Gilley’s 13th of his seventeen career chart-toppers.
0 Comments