Mickey Gilley, the piano-playing crooner who grew up with his cousins Jerry Lee Lewis and Reverend Jimmy Swaggart, passed away May 7 at age 86 in Branson, Mo.

Between 1968 and 1989, Gilley posted 46 entries on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, which included 17 No. 1s among 34 top 10s. He also posted 27 entries on Top Country Albums, encompassing 10 top 10s. Two LPs hit No. 1: 1974’s Room Full of Roses and City Lights, which reached the pinnacle in 1975.

Gilley, who was born in Natchez, Miss., on March 9, 1936, hit the top of Hot Country Songs with his first of 17 leaders in June 1974, when “Room Full of Roses” led for a week. His final trip to the penthouse was also his only collaboration to hit No. 1: 1983’s “Paradise Tonight,” with Charley McClain.

Gilley was at the peak of his career in 1980 when the film Urban Cowboy was released. Much of the movie, starring John Travolta and Debra Winger and featuring Gilley, was shot at Gilley’s, the gigantic honky-tonk in Pasadena, Texas, which the singer opened in 1972. The club’s prized possession was the mechanical bull, which Travolta’s character “Bud” rode numerous times. (Sadly, the club burned down in an arson fire in 1990.)

The Urban Cowboy soundtrack remained at No. 1 on Top Country Albums for eight weeks beginning in August 1980 and peaked at No. 3 on the all-genre Billboard 200 in September 1980 during a 53-week run.

Also from the movie soundtrack was Gilley’s version of Sam Cooke’s “Stand by Me,” which topped Hot Country Songs. It climbed to No. 22 on the Hot 100 in August 1980, becoming Gilley’s lone hit on the all-format survey.

Gilley’s last appearance on Hot Country Songs was in 1989 when “There I Said It Again” reached No. 53 that August.

The following is a list of Mickey Gilley’s 20 biggest Billboard hits listed by rank, title, peak position and peak date.

Mickey Gilley’s Biggest Billboard Hits
1. “She’s Pulling Me Back Again,” No. 1 (1 week), 4/30/1977
2. “I Overlooked an Orchid,” No. 1 (1 week), 11/2/1974
3. “Window Up Above,” No. 1 (1 week), 6/7/1975
4. “Lonely Nights,” No. 1 (1 week),2/6/1982
5. “Paradise Tonight” with Charly McClain, No. 1 (1 week), 10/15/1983
6. “True Love Ways,” No. 1 (1 week), 7/19/1980
7. “Tears of the Lonely,” No. 3, 6/12/1982
8. “Don’t the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time,” No. 1 (1 week), 5/1/1976
9. “Bring It On Home to Me,” No. 1 (1 week), 8/21/1976
10. “That’s All That Matters to Me,” No. 1 (1 week), 12/20/1980
11. “A Headache Tomorrow (Or a Heartache Tonight),” No. 1 (1 week), 4/25/1981
12. “You Don’t Know Me,” No. 1 (1 week), 9/19/1981
13. “Fool for Your Love,” No. 1 (1 week), 6/25/1983
14. “Room Full of Roses,” No. 1 (1 week), 6/29/1974
15. “Stand by Me,” No. 1 (1 week), 8/9/1980
16. “Talk to Me,” No. 1 (1 week), 1/29/1983
17. “City Lights,” No. 1 (1 week), 2/1/1975
18. “Put Your Dreams Away,” No. 1 (1 week), 10/2/1982
19. “Doo-Wah Days,” No. 6, 10/25/1986
20. “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” No. 2, 3/31/1984

Mickey Gilley’s Biggest Billboard Hits ranking is based on weekly performance on Billboard‘s weekly Hot Country Songs chart. Songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at lower spots earning the least. Due to changes in chart methodology over the years, eras are weighted differently to account for chart turnover rates over various periods.

Country star Mickey Gilley, whose namesake Texas honky-tonk inspired the 1980 film Urban Cowboy and a nationwide wave of Western-themed nightspots, has died. He was 86.

Gilley died Saturday (May 7) in Branson, Missouri, where he helped run the Mickey Gilley Grand Shanghai Theatre. He had been performing as recently as last month, but was in failing health over the past week.

“He passed peacefully with his family and close friends by his side,” according to a statement from Mickey Gilley Associates.

Gilley — cousin of rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis — opened Gilley’s, “the world’s largest honky tonk,” in Pasadena, Texas, in the early 1970s. By mid-decade, he was a successful club owner and had enjoyed his first commercial success with “Room Full of Roses.” He began turning out country hits regularly, including “Window Up Above,” “She’s Pulling Me Back Again” and the honky-tonk anthem “Don’t the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time.”

Overall, he had 39 Top 10 country hits and 17 No. 1 songs. He received six Academy of Country Music Awards, and also worked on occasion as an actor, with appearances on Murder She Wrote, The Fall Guy, Fantasy Island and The Dukes of Hazzard.

“If I had one wish in life, I would wish for more time,” Gilley told The Associated Press in March 2001 as he celebrated his 65th birthday. Not that he’d do anything differently, the singer said.

“I am doing exactly what I want to do. I play golf, fly my airplane and perform at my theater in Branson, Missouri,” he said. “I love doing my show for the people.”

Meanwhile, the giant nightspot’s attractions, including its famed mechanical bull, led to the 1980 film Urban Cowboy, starring John Travolta and Debra Winger and regarded by many as a countrified version of Travolta’s 1977 disco smash, Saturday Night Fever. The film inspired by Gilley’s club was based on an Esquire article by Aaron Latham about the relationship between two regulars at the club.

“I thank John Travolta every night before bed for keeping my career alive,” Gilley told The AP in 2002. “It’s impossible to tell you how grateful I am for my involvement with Urban Cowboy. That film had a huge impact on my career, and still does.”

The soundtrack included such hits as Johnny Lee’s “Lookin’ for Love,” Boz Scaggs’ “Look What You’ve Done for Me” and Gilley’s “Stand by Me.” The movie turned the Pasadena club into an overnight tourist draw and popularized pearl snap shirts, longneck beers, the steel guitar and mechanical bulls across the country.

But the club shut down in 1989 after Gilley and his business partner Sherwood Cryer feuded over how to run the place. A fire destroyed it soon after.

An upscale version of the old Gilley’s nightclub opened in Dallas in 2003. In recent years, Gilley moved to Branson.

He was married three times, most recently to Cindy Loeb Gilley. He had four children, three with his first wife, Geraldine Garrett, and one with his second, Vivian McDonald.

A Natchez, Mississippi, native, Gilley grew up poor, learning boogie-woogie piano in Ferriday, Louisiana, alongside Lewis and fellow cousin Jimmy Swaggart, the future evangelist. Like Lewis, he would sneak into the windows of Louisiana clubs to listen to rhythm and blues. He moved to Houston to work construction but played the local club scene at night and recorded and toured for years before catching on in the ’70s.

Gilley had suffered health problems in recent years. He underwent brain surgery in August 2008 after specialists diagnosed hydrocephalus, a condition characterized by an increase in fluid in the cranium. Gilley had been suffering from short-term memory loss, and credited the surgery with halting the onset of dementia.

He underwent more surgery in 2009 after he fell off a step, forcing him to cancel scheduled performances in Branson. In 2018, he sustained a fractured ankle and fractured right shoulder in an automobile accident.