GILLEY'S SALOON

Gilley's was a fabled saloon that was the focal point of Pasadena nightlife during the Seventies and Eighties. In its heyday, Gilley's was the largest nightclub in the world. Featuring local bands and singers like Mickey Gilley and Johnny Lee, Gilley's was the honky-tonk that served as the inspiration for Urban Cowboy. 

Sad to say, Gilley's is no longer with us. It burned down in an arson fire in 1989 after a falling out between Mickey Gilley and Sherwood Cryer, the co-owners.  However, back when the movie was filming, this saloon became just as much a part of Texas lore as JR Ewing and the Dallas series that coincidentally was burning up the TV ratings at the same time. 

At first glance, a casual visitor would have a hard time figuring out why the place was so popular. With its 6,000 person capacity and corrugated roof, the building looked more like an airplane hanger than a dance club.  Due to its drab interior, a near-total absence of color and its cold concrete floor, the club was tough on the eyes.  Gilley's was sometimes described as the "ugliest dance club in America".

The restrooms were dirty and the parking lot was full of potholes.  Not only was the place unattractive, it was uncomfortable.  Even Mickey Gilley admitted the place was a complete dive. "It was filthy," he said. "When it rained, there was water in there. Try dancing in mud puddles.  When it got cold, it was cold in there.  When it got hot, it was hot in there. Sherwood Cryer made the club bigger, but he didn't make it better."

Gilley's was a very rough place. This rundown club was known for plenty of fighting.   It was no surprise the clientele preferred the "Outlaw Country" sound because there were a lot of angry people who considered this place their personal fighting ring.  On any given Saturday, you might see more brawls than your average ice hockey match.  One regular said, "With all the lowlifes who come in and drink themselves silly, if they don't get into at least one scrap, they think their weekend is wasted." Sherwood Cryer was once asked about the BIGGEST free-for-all he had ever witnessed in his place.  One time a teacher's (!) convention had come to Houston. On a Saturday night a busload of teachers, men and women from all parts of the country, had shown up to take in the Gilley's experience. Like everyone else, they were curious as the club's fame was beginning to soar. They all went to sit in one of the corners of the cavernous club.  Thanks to those bratty kids, teachers must have a lot of frustration to let go of. Pretty soon they began to have too much fun.  These teachers got liquored up and began to fight, first with each other.  Then they took on the regulars!  Uh oh. Cryer sent over two, then four, then eventually every bouncer and large patron he could find in an attempt to restore order, but these drunken teachers ended up beating the crap out of every bouncer and wannabee bouncer in that melee.

Finally Cryer had to call in the Pasadena Police and the EMTs. The Pasadena Police arrived in force with their riot helmets on and brandishing serious-looking batons.  When the schoolteachers found themselves being surrounded by these officers, they reacted by attacking the cops (!) as well!  Eventually many of these rowdy educators were hauled off to jail.  Afterwards, to Cryer's dismay, the cops shut down the club for the rest of the night.

Nevertheless, despite its frequent fighting and dilapidated appearance, there were plenty of people willing to overlook the club's shortcomings. From the moment the movie started filming, Gilley's began to rival the Eiffel Tower as a must-see tourist attraction. 

Every night hundreds of regulars showed up to drink, dance, fight, flirt, make out, bullshit, shoot pool, and see who would get their nuts cracked on El Toro, the club's famed mechanical bull.  Bob Claypool of the Houston Post wrote: "Gilley's was, quite simply, the most Texan of them all, the biggest, brawlingest, loudest, dancingest, craziest joint of its kind ever."

Sources:  
Mother of All Honky-Tonks by Christopher Gray
Closing Time : Gilley's Sherwood Cryer by Carlos Carbillo
Looking for Love by Gregory Curtis

 

So the question we have to ask is this:  How on earth did a complete dump like Gilley's ever become the national symbol for popularity?  The purpose of this chapter is to explore the answers to this very intriguing question.

 

NEW YORK CITY If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere, It's up to you, New York, New York. Our story begins in New York, long considered the nation's center of culture.  New York City has been the birthplace for many cultural movements.  As an example, did you know that American Jazz largely got its start in New York City?  For that matter, so did Charleston, Swing Dancing and the Lindy Hop.  We call it "East Coast Swing" because New York City is where Swing developed. If you want to make something 'popular', the place to start would be NYC.  New York City is home to Wall Street, the New York Times, national magazines, book publishing, and all the major networks.  Over time, New York has become America's nerve center for all things cultural. It is the absolute best place to be anytime you want to "start spreading the news".

FASHION AND ADVERTISING

Over the years, I admit I have followed the dictates of fashion now and then. I remember buying bell bottoms even though I cringed a little.  And I wore some of those questionable Disco outfits during the heyday.  However, it wasn't until the Urban Cowboy era came along that I finally found my niche... oh boy, blue jeans are in!  A committed blue jeans kind of guy, once I realized my existing wardrobe would last forever with proper care, that was the day Madison Avenue and the Fashion Industry lost their hold on me.

As the years passed, not only did my love affair with blue jeans continued unabated, but my daughter grew up to become a teenager complete with opinions and the willingness to offer them.  One day my daughter casually pointed out I would never be considered 'fashionable' wearing those same boring clothes all the time.  That was the moment I realized that Madison Avenue had gotten inside of her head.

I laughed and reminded her that Marie Antoinette, the leading fashion symbol of her time, had lost her head.  Marie's excellent fashion sense was counter-balanced by her lack of common sense.  Fashion can only take you so far.

Maybe so, my daughter replied, but the most popular girls at her high school were also the best-dressed... surely that was more than mere coincidence.  I smiled.  I knew where this was headed.  My daughter was about to hit me up for money for clothes. This is exactly why Madison Avenue is so obsessed with the youth culture.  Old people like me might care less about being popular and wearing the latest styles, but the young and impressionable are fair game.  They still have mates to find, jobs to obtain, and things to accomplish.  Madison Avenue had done its job on my daughter.  She and the rest of our nation's youth were convinced the elusive goal called 'popularity' was something worth pursuing.  All the kids had to do was figure out how to be popular and their life would be set. No problem.  Madison Avenue promised it would be right there to tell them which products were sure to make them "the most popular".  At the very top of that list would be the "In Clothes" of the day, the clothes that only the best people wear... for example, the kids who are popular.

Anybody can sell warm clothes to a shivering man.  But it takes a real genius to sell impractical clothing of dubious attractiveness that no one needs.  The secret of selling stuff that no one needs is to convince people that buying a product will magically make them "popular". Advertising people are paid enormous sums of money to figure out ways to get ordinary people to pay hard-earned cash to buy clothing others might consider 'worthless'. Code words for 'popularity' begin to creep into our language. New Look. Cool. Hip. Happening. Chic. Edgy. Trendy. Emerging. Changing. Fad. Rad. Hot. Funky. Stylish.  et cetera et cetera. If the Madmen could just find some way get the public to bite on these words, they might be able to sell a product that has proven difficult to move.  Wear something Stylish enough and you too can become a hip hop happening popularity machine. So what does this all have to do with Gilley's?  Be patient.  It isn't easy explaining how Gilley's became the national symbol for popularity.

TREND SPOTTERS

Trend Spotters are very shrewd people who make it their business to identify cultural trends in their early stages in order to take advantage of the momentum.  These people are constantly on the prowl for any possible angle that will help them sell more clothes that no one needs.

Once upon a time, fashion designers used their instincts to predict what the public would buy.  Unfortunately, this approach had its shortcomings.  Every wrong guess left manufacturers with a lot of unsold clothing on their hands.  An example from my youth were the "Nehru jackets".  I remember every teenager laughing their heads of.  That item became an expensive gamble that failed.

Every mistake was so costly - not just in money, but in reputation as well - that the fashion designers began to seek ways to cover their bet. They began to rely on market research to make their tough process of guessing what would sell a little easier. 

Along the way, even the experts had to admit that "predicting what might become cool" wasn't very easy.  

Wouldn't their jobs would be easier if they could simply dictate to the American public what was cool?  When it came to manipulating the American zeitgeist, why leave anything to chance? 

After all, it is so much easier to make money when you already know what is coming next.

All they had to do was find something that was absolutely certain to become the next best thing.  Then one day it happened... by some miracle they found The Next Sure Thing... Everybody agreed it couldn't miss.

Take a guess.

Gilley's!!! 

It has long been rumored that many of the cultural trends that affect the entire nation are orchestrated behind the scenes by some very shrewd people in the Big Apple. Thanks to the powerful presence of Wall Street, Madison Avenue, and the New York print and broadcast media, there are forces at work in New York that are unrivaled anywhere else in the country.  Why bother guessing what the next cultural trend will be when all you have to do is go out and create it yourself! This story will explain this process in detail.  All the experts agreed - with just a little help from Madison Avenue, Gilley's was going to be the absolute next best thing.
CLAY FELKER, The Ultimate Trend Spotter It all started with Clay Felker. Clay Felker was the legendary editor of New York Magazine and later Esquire who knew everybody in the business: media, politics, theater, Hollywood, you name it.  Intimately connected to the pulse of America, Clay Felker was one of the most influential journalists of his time. In addition to his work at New York Magazine, he helped found the The Village Voice as well as Gloria Steinem's Ms Magazine.  Felker was once quoted in his Duke Magazine profile about how California—like New York—was prime territory for trend-spotting. Felker said, "Journalism is very often about the future." This was a fitting observation from someone who time and again practiced what he preached.  Felker would see something that was ready to happen, then do something to make sure it actually did happen.  Clay Felker made it his business to be the spark that lit the bonfire.

As a magazine editor, early in his career, Felker made his reputation by telling it like it is without regard for negative backlash. He was willing to step on toes.  As one example, Felker published the first account of how the mega-wattage of newspaper, magazine, and television coverage, abetted by the PR resources of the fashion industry, had created an entirely new kind of New York socialite.

Society people take their status seriously, especially "New York" Society people.  Previously New York's Society people had traced their importance to money and their Protestant family lineage.  The nerve of that upstart Felker to embarrass New York's power elite like that!

His article not only angered the Old Money establishment no end, it thrilled the up and comers no end as well.  They liked being noticed.  Best of all, it amused all the New Yorkers as much as any story in ages.  Maybe those pompous old crows who thought they were so special weren't as popular as they believed!

Felker defined the form of the modern city magazine.  Felker was a "writer's editor". He encouraged his writers to address modern life in a bold, vividly descriptive style. Felker didn't just sit back and wait for stories to land on his desk.  Felker's keen eye resulted in many powerful stories about life in the big city. The ultimate "trend spotter", Felker made it his business to notice something interesting, then go find a writer to poke his nose into it. 

For example, Felker suggested to reporter Gail Sheehy (later his wife) that she investigate prostitution in New York, but perhaps from an unusual angle.  Sheehy didn't just get out her notepad and do interviews.  Instead she followed Felker's idea and took to the streets wearing hot pants, white vinyl boots and a revealing top.  Adding in puffed up hair and too much makeup, the disguise worked perfectly.  Gail Sheehy was able to mingle with the “working girls” and get some straight talk.  What she brought back to Felker at his magazine was an astonishing eyewitness account of the trade.

Soon Felker's magazine was on the tip of everyone's tongue.  What would Felker print next?

Gail Sheehy wasn't the only writer who benefitted from Felker's vision.  Clay Felker's ideas helped many writers become established. Tom Wolfe, the best-selling author, was one of his first superstars. Wolfe turned a Felker suggestion into The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, a fascinating book on the counter-culture that was a favorite of mine back in college.  Tom Wolfe went on to become one of America's best-selling authors with books like Bonfire of the Vanities and The Right Stuff to his credit. Despite his success, Wolfe never forgot who his mentor was.  In a 1993 interview with The Washington Post, Tom Wolfe called Clay Felker "the greatest idea man that ever existed".    Sources: Felkerism, by Kurt Andersen A City Built of Clay, by Tom Wolfe

	LIGHTNING STRIKES ONCE In 1975, Nik Cohn, a writer for Felker's New York Magazine, penned a story about a world of lower-middle-class, lower-IQ youths who lived in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx in the mid-1970s.  These kids lived for Saturday nights in disco clubs. Titled "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", Cohn's story was published in June 1976.  This article served as the source material for the movie Saturday Night Fever which debuted in November 1977. As it turned out, Clay Felker, then editor of New York Magazine, was the inspiration behind the story.  However, Felker did not sell the movie or make any money off of it. The man behind the movie version was Robert Stigwood, a music producer and the manager of the music group Bee Gees.  Robert Stigwood had a three-film contract with John Travolta. He parlayed his Travolta/Bee Gee connection into a film with Paramount Pictures.
Robert Stigwood got his start mainly as the manager of the famous Rock band Cream starring Eric Clapton.  He parlayed his success in the music industry into productions both stage and film.  Among his stage credits are Evita, Hair, Pippin, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Sweeney Todd.  Among Stigwood's film credits are Grease, Jesus Christ Superstar, Tommy, and Saturday Night Fever.  As you can see, Stigwood was no stranger to success. Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees said this in the Observer Music Monthly January 2008: "The idea for the film that became Saturday Night Fever started when our manager, Robert Stigwood, saw an article in New York magazine titled 'Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night' by Nik Cohn.  The article talked about teenagers going to dancing competitions. When they first started dance rehearsals for the film with John Travolta, they were using our song 'You Should Be Dancing,' which had been released the previous year.   We were mixing a live album in France. Robert rang me up and said the song was great.  Then he asked if we had any other songs we could contribute. So we got to work.  In the end we had five new tracks - 'Staying Alive,' 'How Deep is Your Love?,' 'Night Fever,' 'More Than a Woman' and 'If I Can't Have You' (recorded by Yvonne Elliman) - plus the previously released 'Jive Talkin" and 'You Should Be Dancing.' Seven songs total. It was also our idea to call the movie Saturday Night Fever, because the competitions were on Saturday and we already had the track on the music album 'Night Fever.'  Disco was primarily an urban subculture phenomenon found in the big cities.  Disco had been around for several years before Saturday Night Fever came out though it operated just beneath the radar of mainstream America.  Oddly enough, in 1977 when the movie debuted, many people in the music industry believed that Disco with its uncreative electronic music and vapid lyrics was on its way out.  However, the movie changed their minds in a hurry! So why was Saturday Night Fever so popular?  While most people only remember the dancing and the catchy Bee Gees music, many forget that Saturday Night Fever had an excellent script with richly drawn characters. The irony is that the story that inspired the script turned out to be a complete fake!  Nineteen years later in 1996, Nik Cohn confessed that he made the characters up from his own imagination.  Rumor has it he based his main characters on a Disco-version of "Rebel Without a Cause".  John Travolta as James Dean.  Too funny.  Whatever his Muse, it worked.   No one had expected much from Paramount’s scrappy low-budget disco movie, but this hard-hitting story of directionless youth with Travolta as the dancing James Dean packed quite a punch.  Saturday Night Fever struck a chord with audiences all over the world.  The movie became a box office and pop cultural phenomenon.  It also sold a lot of records.

	LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE In September 1978, an article titled "The Ballad of the Urban Cowboy and America's Search for True Grit" appeared in Esquire Magazine.  Aaron Latham told a story about a world of lower-middle-class, lower-IQ youths in Pasadena, Texas, in the mid-1970s who lived for Saturday nights in country-western joints.  Does that tagline sound vaguely familiar? From the moment the article appeared, there seemed to be striking parallels between Saturday Night Fever and Urban Cowboy.  Indeed, look at the headline on Esquire Magazine. The two movies were linked right from the start.  This was no coincidence.  The man behind this new story was none other than Clay Felker, now the editor of Esquire. Aaron Latham was a hip Washington DC resident married to long-time 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl.  Although Latham was born in West Texas, he had been based on the East Coast for most of his adult life.  As it turned out, Aaron Latham had never even heard of Gilley's and didn't know a thing about the place.  So what got him interested?  Clay Felker.

Gregory Curtis, Texas Monthly:  

"In 1978 Clay Felker was the editor of Esquire. Our publisher Mike Levy and my predecessor as editor Bill Broyles invited him to Houston that summer to speak at the Rice University Publishing Program.  Instead of an honorarium, Felker wanted to be shown around the famous boomtown.  So they ended up at Gilley’s late one night.

At Texas Monthly, we had discussed writing about Gilley’s but hadn’t done it. One of the aggravations of journalism is that you can be so familiar with something that you miss a story that is right in front of your face. That was what we did with Gilley’s, and after twenty years maybe we now can admit it.

Felker saw the mechanical bull and the cowboys dancing with a beer bottle in their back pockets and their girlfriend’s thumbs hooked in their belt loops. He was so struck by the place that back in his hotel room late that night, he called writer Aaron Latham. 

Latham had been born and raised in Spur, Texas, but was then living in Washington, D.C.  Felker told him to get out of bed and catch the first airplane to Houston."

During his tour of the club, Aaron Latham met some interesting Gilley's regulars including the colorful operator of the mechanical bull. This guy was quite a character.  The bull operator somehow managed to talk Latham into trying to ride the mechanical bull.  Latham deserves some credit. It took some real guts to get up there.  Beginners were sure to be thrown. 

Latham was quickly thrown off... and immediately hooked.  That bull would become the star of his story.  Latham hung around Gilley's for a month, interviewing everyone in sight and riding the bull (and getting hurt nearly every time). 

Back in those days, Pasadena was nicknamed "Stinkadena" for the oil refineries and paper plants that brought the area its jobs. Early on, Latham decided his story would center around Pasadena petrochemical plant employees who escaped the monotony of their jobs by playing cowboy after hours over at Gilley’s.   Of course the bravest of the bunch liked to prove their 'cowboyness' by riding the mechanical bull.

The bull was a good place to start, but it wasn't enough.  Latham was searching for a love story.  Then one night, he found what he was looking for. "This girl came in named Betty Helmer, and she rode the bull standing up," Latham said.  It turned out that Betty was a better bull rider than her husband Dew, a guy she had met at Gilley's. Dew was so mad at his wife for showing him up, he forbade her to ride the bull anymore.  In retaliation, Betty starting flirting with the mechanical bull operator! 

Latham was thrilled by this soap opera-style nonsense. Now he had a real live love triangle to write about!  

A few months after the Esquire article came out, Latham was hard at work writing the movie script to Urban Cowboy.  That is when Latham discovered the guy who ran the bull was actually an escaped convict on the lam.  Latham was astonished.  The same man who had first got Latham hooked on riding the bull had actually been a convict hiding in plain sight over at Gilley's!

Every night hundreds of people would walk right past this guy without a clue in the world as to his dark secret.  Latham had been fooled just like everyone else.

In retrospect, it made perfect sense to hide there in this vast indoor badlands.  Spending his nights seducing Betty Helmer and any other woman who caught his eye, the convict fit right in.  This stuff even was better than his own imagination!  It read just like a twisted plot twist from a Fugitive episode.  A writer couldn't ask for more. Gilley's was the gift that just kept on giving.

Once Latham got over his shock, he delightedly added this precious nugget to his movie script. The Bull Operator was no longer just the third wheel in the love triangle.  He was now the full-fledged bad guy of the movie.

Shakespeare had Much Ado about Nothing.  Latham would have Much Bull about Bull.  Modern times call for Modern phrases.

THE FINAL PIECE TO THE PUZZLE

Clay Felker passed away in 2008.  Here is an item from his obituary:

"For several years, Clay Felker was a consultant to 20th Century Fox, which transformed several stories he had edited, most notably "Saturday Night Fever" (1977) and "Urban Cowboy" (1980), into movies."

Saturday Night Fever was a Felker inspiration that Robert Stigwood had stumbled onto and capitalized on.  Felker helped Stigwood turn the story into a movie, but didn't receive much credit.  Although Felker was involved in the project from the start, he was reduced to a footnote in the Saturday Night Fever project. 

Burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me.

Felker kicked himself no end for letting Stigwood get most of the credit... and money... for this prize that had been his idea in the beginning.  Felker paid attention and took notes.

Felker was going to make damn sure he would be the one to capitalize on the next project.  Like the Holy Grail, Felker immediately began the search for the next Saturday Night Fever.  And once he found it, he got the wheels rolling pronto.

Urban Cowboy was fast-tracked from the moment Felker walked into Gilley's.

THE GREAT URBAN COWBOY MYSTERY

Let's say you dabble in the stock market.  You are an average guy who does the best you can to stay abreast of the trends.  Suddenly one of your stocks makes a huge jump that catches you completely flat-footed.  Although you benefit from the unexpected fortune, later you hear through the grapevine that some fat cat on Wall Street bought plenty of shares and made an even bigger killing. 

So you sit back and wonder to yourself, "How the heck did he know that was going to happen?"  If you are like me, you assume it is another case of insider trading. 

Rich people... and I am talking the 'very rich' here... always seem to know stuff before the average guy. They use that advance knowledge to anticipate developments and cash in.  The advantage always goes to the person who gets there first.

In the case of Urban Cowboy, four different industries got rich - the movie industry, the country music industry, the western wear industry, and Houston's local nightclubs.  Did I say 'rich'?  Change that.  I meant to say 'very rich'. 

Were they lucky?  Did they have crystal balls? 

Or was there some remote chance everyone knew something in advance?

WESTERN FASHION

Throughout the first seven months of 1980, Houston got itself wrapped into a tizzy over the debut of Urban Cowboy.  One of the major harbingers of the movie's debut was the radical change in women's clothing. 

I was no fashion expert, but as my world turned upside down, I could see someone in the design industry obviously had the brilliant idea to push fancy western wear well before the movie's debut. 

What a coincidence!  How did these people know 'western fashion' - previously an oxymoron to the fashion industry - would suddenly have an audience?  That was quite a prediction!  Ralph Lauren and Gloria Vanderbilt of all people were suddenly hot names in western wear. They were obviously in on the big "Urban Cowboy" secret.

Some of the outfits that began to appear in public bordered on the preposterous.  Take the lady in the picture on the right.  When was the last time you saw a woman dressed like that out on the prairie rounding up cattle?  Exactly. 

Yet that picture is a perfect example of what you might see at Cowboy, the dance club in Houston where all the pretty girls went to make their western fashion statements. 

Pretentious?  Definitely.  Fun to look at?  Definitely.

The "Cowboy Look" benefitted dramatically from the resurgence in the popularity of country music.  This new 'cowboy look' incorporated some Hollywood glitz mixed with rhinestones, Southwestern Hispanic and Native American styles such as silver and turquoise, as well as fashionable dresses complete with Indian designs.  The jeans became tighter, the shirts louder, and hats took on the same personalized importance of boots.  Western accessories such as jewelry, fancy boots, and expensive hats became an obsession with people concerned about Western style... and Houston had plenty of those.

As country music became more popular, huge Western clothing super-stores opened throughout America dedicated solely to supplying the fashion needs of country music's (and country dancing's) new devotees.  It was quite the boom time. When it came to Western Wear, someone was making a killing.

The icons of Western fashion were no longer found in the movies. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were out.  Now attractive, clean-cut country music stars like George Strait and Reba McEntire became the measure for the new cowboy look.

The music people fed the fashion people and vice versa.  You don't suppose the same people owned both businesses, do you?

The new 'Cowboy Look' no longer focused on the Western hero, but rather was aimed at the American worker who gets duded-up to play on the weekend.  And where do you suppose they got that idea?  You can thank Urban Cowboy.

Throughout 1980 people were going nuts over the clothes.  People were going nuts over the music.  Here in Houston, people's imaginations ran wild. I was incredulous.  They didn't even know if the movie was going to be a hit or not.

All that fuss and the entire time no one had any idea the movie would turn out to be so vapid. Sometimes 'not knowing' is a good thing.  It allowed all the hype to continue to build without a reality check. 

This was going to be the biggest thing to hit Houston since the Astrodome!  As the famed designer Oscar de la Renta succinctly put it, "Thanks heavens Texas women love clothes.  They are a beacon of what is wonderful about America." 

élan

élan was home to Houston's rich and famous.  It was the place you went to see celebrities.  I was dancing there one night with my girlfriend Victoria.  Victoria screamed when she spotted Bill Blass, the famous designer, dining on one of the lower levels as we walked by. She gasped in awe. Apparently Bill Blass was one of her big heroes.  Another time I spotted Rick Barry, a Hall of Fame basketball player who briefly played for the Rockets. At 6' 8", he was pretty easy to notice.

élan had five different split levels. What was unique about these levels is that they allowed you to look up and check out the action or look down and check out the action.  It took a very imaginative architect to create this multi-layered effect.  Depending on what level you were on, you had separate areas designed for continental dining, dancing, drinking, backgammon games, and even quiet conversation.  And how do you have a quiet conversation at a loud Disco?  A zoned sound system customized the decibel level for each specific area.  The place was so very elegant.

One Halloween night at élan, I had the most fun dancing of any single evening in my entire life. I did something very daring... I went dancing in a skin-tight outfit.  

It was 1978 and élan had a Halloween Party complete with permission to wear costumes.  Ordinarily I am overtly modest.  However, this event afforded me an unusual opportunity. 

My dance teacher Glen had this amazing skin-tight leopard costume that one of the men in his jazz dance company used for his 'Jungle Madness' number... a man's version of the picture on the right.  I had wanted to wear that costume for the longest time because I knew it would look good on me. Back in those days, thanks to my love of basketball, I was pretty well-built.  However, I was much too modest to wear anything that sexy. I didn't dare wear it because everyone would know it was me. 

On the other hand, this costume came complete with a mask that you could pull over your head.  The mask would disguise my face completely. That gave me an idea.  Why not go to élan by myself, wear normal clothes and put the costume on there?

So that's what I did.  I changed in the restroom and went out to dance floor as the masked Leopard Man. Unfortunately, I immediately recognized a half dozen students of mine scattered throughout the club. So I had to add "silence" to my new persona or face the teasing over my wild outfit all night long.  Now I refused to speak to anyone. That made it a little tricky to dance.  How do you ask a woman to dance without asking?  Finally I used sign language... I went up to a woman and pointed to the dance floor.

After that it didn't matter.  From that point on, the women did the asking.  I was easily the best male dancer in the entire building.  For one thing, I didn't have any competition. Rich guys can't dance a lick. For another thing, once I was behind that mask, I became totally uninhibited.  I moved my body any damn way I pleased.  I was erotic when I felt like it, but never vulgar.  Whatever I did, it seemed to have a positive effect on women.  I was quite the center of attention. 

Women came up to me all night long to ask Leopard Man to dance.  As they watched me move, their eyes went from head to toe.  Watching them lick their lips and grin with excitement, I could tell they liked the show. And I liked their smiles. What an ego trip!  I was being rewarded for daring to show a side of my personality that ordinarily I would never dream of revealing in public. 

People came up to talk to me all night long. However I refused to speak. I would simply draw a line across my mouth to indicate Mum was the word.  That didn't stop people from talking to me.  Like a party game, people wanted to identify my secret identity.  For example, all night long women called me by different names. I simply shook my head no.  Even women who knew me were left guessing.  They were certain it was me, but I shook my head no.  Watching their frustration, I was having a lot of fun with this.  Since no one at my studio had ever seen me dance like this before, my secret identity stayed safe for most of the night.

My mistake came when I decided to partner dance. Unfortunately partner dancing requires a partner who knows what she is doing.  I picked a lady from the studio who had been suspicious of me all night.  Now she knew it was me.  Once I was out there, a second woman and her husband also recognized my style and nodded. I didn't mind... I wanted to partner dance!  Finally I gave in and whispered the truth to all three people.  I swore them all to secrecy.  With my secret identity intact, I spent the rest of the evening dancing with the two ladies.  Now I received a new round of attention.  People cleared the dance floor to let Masked Leopard Man spin the girls and put on a superb show of dancing.  What a night. It was fun to be the star.

In case you are curious, no, I didn't cash in on my brazen display of lewd dancing. That really wasn't what I come for. I went to élan to dance the night away. I loved dancing to Disco music. Too bad it had to die young.

Mind you, Susie, my beautiful girl friend, got in for free.  I was there when some man stopped her one night and offered her a free membership.  That's how I learned they handed out free memberships to beautiful SINGLE women all the time.  It was a very interesting way of stocking the pond.  Nor were they discrete about it. This was done right in front of my eyes.  My girlfriend was now officially 'bait' for the rich businessmen to hit on.  Needless to say, Susie had way too much fun with that one.  I was so ugly I had to pay.  Thanks, Susie.

But that wasn't the reason I hated élan. The arrogance and consistent rudeness on the part of their staff was intolerable.  Yes, they had a wonderful product, but that was no reason to treat paying customers with disrespect. It was so consistent I began to wonder if it was part of the act.

One night I had a very awkward run-in with the staff when I tried to bring in five of my Disco students as guests.   Thanks to my membership, I had the right to bring in four guests at a time. That's why I joined the club in the first place.  Visiting this veritable palace was an excellent way to socialize with my dance students and have fun in the process. It never dawned on me they would quibble over one extra person.  I apologized for my mistake and asked if they could just bend the rule this one time.  No. How absurd.  So we all left in protest. 

I had two incidents where my students were turned away for dress code violations.  I was angry because other people wearing identical clothing were walking in with impunity. 

The second incident infuriated me the most.  Based on the standards they had set during the first incident, I had personally told one of my guests their clothes were not a problem.  Wrong.  No matter how hard I protested, they didn't budge.  Needless to say, I felt terrible watching my humiliated student trudge back to his car.  Since this had happened more than once, I became suspicious.  I guessed that some of my guests didn't meet their 'attractiveness standards'. 

Incidents like these were the main reason I began to dislike the people who worked at élan. 

However, there was more to it than that.  In general, I always felt their staff used 'snippy' where 'courtesy' would have worked much better.  Did they simply hire snooty people and turn them loose or did they actually train people how to be haughty? 

The climate of iciness was so pervasive that I began to wonder if that attitude was deliberate.  I actually began to suspect it was a cynical management technique used to create the illusion of 'exclusivity'.  Why not turn a few people away on a nightly basis to prove how special our club is! 

You can't have an 'in-crowd' without an 'out-crowd'.  Just like I didn't appreciate élan using Susie to stock their 'in-crowd', I didn't appreciate élan using my students to stock their 'out-crowd' either. 

I can't be sure where their staff's "I'm superior" attitude originated, but I was actually tickled when the place shut down in November 1984.  They sent me an announcement in the mail.  I still have that announcement.  It hangs on my wall at home. I added this inscription - "It pays to be nice to people. Let élan's fate be a lesson. Good riddance."

My negative experience with élan is how I first became aware of McFaddin-Kendrick. I began to associate that name with incredible taste paired with cynical business tactics.  However, my resentment didn't stop me from visiting their expensive establishments.  If anything, I was now extra curious about their business. 

McFaddin-Kendrick was on my radar.
 

WESTERN DANCING REPLACES DISCO IN HOUSTON

Saturday Night Fever created the surge of interest in Disco Dancing after its release.

Oddly enough, Urban Cowboy created its surge of interest in Western dancing before its movie release.

Many people expected Urban Cowboy would revolutionize Country-Western dancing the same way that Saturday Night Fever had taken Disco to another level.  As it turned out, the prediction was correct, but for all the wrong reasons.  Even though the dancing in Urban Cowboy was unbelievably lame, the movie still managed to put Country-Western Dancing on the map nonetheless. 

So how did this freak situation happen? 

Thanks to the eerie similarities between Saturday Night Fever and Urban Cowboy, the movie was expected to feature awesome Western dancing.  The Houston papers buzzed with stories about how John Travolta took Western dance lessons to prepare for the movie.  Everyone wondered out loud if Travolta would do the same thing for Western dancing that he had previously done for Disco dancing.  Thanks to Travolta's presence, everyone assumed that lightning would strike twice.

Amazingly, the "Expectation" was all it took.  The Western Dance Phenomenon became a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Everyone started to Western dance before the movie was even released because they assumed it would become popular.  After all, with all those Western Dance Clubs opening here in Houston well before the debut, someone clearly expected Western Dancing to become popular.  If they build it, they will come.

As it turned out, Travolta's dancing in the movie made no difference whatsoever. The deed was already done. The "expectation" had worked its magic ahead of time. 

By the time the movie was released, the wildfire surge of interest in Western dancing was already out of control.  This created a very amusing situation.  When Urban Cowboy was finally released in July - easily the most highly anticipated event in Western civilization since the Second Coming - the average nightly dancing in Houston's country dance clubs was already superior to the dancing in the movie! 

So, yes, the hype surrounding Travolta was the initial catalyst for the upswing in Western dancing.  But for Western Dancing to succeed, Disco had to die.

In regards to the murder investigation into the Death of Disco, I had a prime suspect. His name was Lance McFaddin.

The new club had to cost at least three million dollars... plus all that money down the drain from designing and decorating the successful disco that was being canned. 

All this for an experimental club format - upscale Western dancing in a ritzy neighborhood - that had never been tried before.  You would need quite a crystal ball for that kind of gamble.  It's just like stuff you read on the Internet.  If something you read or see seems too impossible to believe, then don't believe it.

On the other hand, what if Lance McFaddin knew something that other people didn't?  Then the gamble begins to make more sense.  You don't suppose Mr. McFaddin had some inside information, do you? 

Mind you, this is all speculation.  I could not find one story that connected Sherwood Cryer to Lance McFaddin.  But if I had some money to bet, I would put some of it on Sherwood Cryer.  Sherwood Cryer must have known something.  Several articles about Cryer indicated he was the only man in Pasadena who thought a movie was possible.  Everyone else thought he was full of youknowhat.

Mickey Gilley wrote that Cryer kept insisting that something was going down.  However, Gilley said he didn't believe a word the man said.  Cryer was just an old man grasping at fame.  In fact, after Gilley read Latham's article in Esquire, he was pretty angry.  Gilley confronted Cryer with the article.

Gilley said he thought Latham's article was condescending and negative.  Gilley said in disgust there was no way some nasty article about a bunch of lowlifes in "Stinkadena", the unpleasant nickname for Pasadena, was going to lead to some movie.

Sherwood Cryer strongly disagreed. He told Gilley to shut his mouth and keep his thoughts to himself.  According to Gilley, Cryer said bluntly, "Hey, buddy, you don't need to run that article down. Somebody just might make a movie out of it."

Rick Archer's Note:  The main purpose of my article has been to answer this question:

How on earth did a complete dump like Gilley's ever become the national symbol for popularity?

We now know that Clay Felker came up with the short end on Saturday Night Fever. After that, Felker made it his goal in life to find a sequel. Gilley's of all places turned out to be the place Clay Felker had been looking for.

Unfortunately, I was unable to locate any anecdotes that dealt with Felker's wheeling and dealing once he began his Urban Cowboy project.  There were no articles I could find that explained the full extent of his role in creating the movie Urban Cowboy.

That said, by connecting the dots, it becomes obvious that Felker brought in the Fashion people, the Movie people, and the Music people to create a coordinated effort in support of his Urban Cowboy project.  Felker was probably involved with Urban Cowboy from start to finish.  This movie was his baby.

There is one final question that must be asked. 

Who was responsible for making the illogical shift from a dump like Gilley's to a palace like Cowboy? 

Whose idea was it ? Was it Lance McFaddin?  Was it Clay Felker?  Or was it somebody else we don't know about it?

I invite you to study the two pictures on the right.  On the top, you see the fashionable world of preppie cowboys and cowgirls, the kind of urban professionals you might have met at Cowboy thanks to the Urban Cowboy influence that permeated 1980 Houston. 

Below you see all the markings of a Gilley's-style western honky-tonk complete with bikers, pool players, fights, and working class dancers.

These are two totally different worlds. There was nothing in Aaron Latham's original story that connected them. 

Somebody had the idea to jump from hick to chic.

Clay Felker?  A Hollywood movie guy?  A New York fashion lady?  A Nashville music executive? 

Saturday Night Fever at least took advantage of an actual urban trend towards Disco. But there was absolutely no trend whatsoever towards taking Western upscale.

I contend this entire cultural phenomenon was created behind the scenes by someone in Felker's inner circle.  Someone in New York had a clever idea.  From that point on, the Synergy Group started pushing the right buttons.