Wednesday, Nov. 25, 1998 | 10:04 a.m.
The thought crept into Phil Ruffin's mind while watching the 1980 ode to boots 'n Wranglers, "Urban Cowboy."
It wasn't John Travolta's sultry country dancing or barroom-brawl approach to leisure activity. It wasn't Debra Winger's twangy drawl and spritzed-up hair, the half-empty bottles of Lone Star beer or the sappy tune, "Looking for Love."
It was that danged mechanical bull.
"I loved the bucking bronco thing," Ruffin, owner of the New Frontier hotel-casino, said. "I thought it was very country. That's when it kind of came to my mind, watching people ride the bucking bronco and having a heck of a lotta fun."
Inspired by visions drugstore cowboys happily tumbling tea over teakettle after a three-second brush with humility, Ruffin contacted country music star Mickey Gilley.
Famous for his straightforward country tunes, Gilley was the co-owner of the since-defunct Gilley's nightclub in Houston which served as the centerpiece for "Urban Cowboy." Ruffin wanted to talk business.
"I had heard a lot about Mickey and I contacted his people with the idea. We met in Wichita (Kan.), to discuss the possibility of going into business together," Ruffin said during a recent phone interview from his Wichita office. "He came in and wowed everybody."
Both hope to wow Las Vegas, too.
Keeping the urban myth of "Urban Cowboy" alive nearly 20 years after its release, Gilley and Ruffin christen the Gilley's Saloon, Dance Hall and Bar-B-Que at the New Frontier on Dec. 3.
"I've always thought that anything on the Strip that had dancing and was a place people could dress up and have a good time would succeed," Gilley said in a phone interview from his office in Pasadena, Texas. "I envisioned several different things, and Phil had the space and the money and I had the logo."
The new Gilley's is a scaled-back version of the sprawling original club, which "went kaput," to use Gilley's term, in 1989 and was lost to an arson fire a year later.
"That was the lowest period of my life," Gilley said. "Everything was going so well for a while, then it died."
But not after a legendary run in the late '70s and early '80s, sparked by the blockbuster film and accompanying triple-platinum soundtrack. The dance hall, it seemed, was as big a star as Travolta and Winger.
"The size was what was impressive," Gilley said. "Everyone was impressed with how big it was. Texas means big, and this place was just huge."
The original club was an awe-inspiring 48,000-square feet, listed as the largest nightclub in the world by the "Guinness Book of World Records." The majestic honky-tonk had a capacity of 6,000, and Gilley himself was a regular featured performer.
It was the Studio 54 for the Stetson and chaps set.
Naturally, the mechanical bull, live music and spacious dance floor were the primary drawing points for the gritty, love-'em-and-leave-'em nightclub. The national faux-cowboy craze was prompted by a September, 1978 article in Esquire magazine, which chronicled the cast of characters that hung out at Gilley's and inspired the movie two years later.
"It was kind of a cultural phenomenon that got discovered," Gilley said. "It was a big subculture that spread all across the nation."
Travolta's star power, doing for the cowboy genre what he did for the disco movement in "Saturday Night Fever," helped pack the club every weekend during the lengthy run of "Urban Cowboy."
"We had fun in those days," said Gilley, who as a performer has notched 39 Top 10 country songs and 17 No. 1 country hits. "But I learned a lot through the experience and a lot of it wasn't pleasant. I learned that you have to be in control of your own destiny when it comes to business, and I wasn't."
Once the "Urban Cowboy," fad faded, Gilley's became an unwieldy business venture. Gilley and partner, Sherwood Cryer, became immersed in a contentious lawsuit over possession of the club name and logo, with the dogged Gilley finally winning the suit in 1990.
By then, about all Gilley had was his name, musical skills, and limited business expertise. He was broke and confused.
"I knew my idea would work, but I didn't know where or how to make it happen," Gilley said. "Fortunately, I still had the logo and the name recognition helped get me back on my feet."
Cashing in on the recognizable Gilley's trademark, Gilley raised enough money to open the 1,000-seat Gilley's Texas Theater in Branson, Mo., which has been highly successful for nearly a decade.
In 1996, Gilley descended on another resort community, Myrtle Beach, S.C., and broke ground on the Gilley's Texas Cafe.
"Over a period of time we've been able to make both the restaurant and theater work," Gilley said. "But it was kind of like raising the Titanic. I've done a lot better with my businesses (since the original Gilley's nightclub closed) because everything comes through me."
Gilley remains clearly bitter about the acrimonious demise of his famed club, which opened in 1971.
"I was in partnership with a guy and it was supposed to be 50-50," he said. "It turned out to be 90-10, and I was the 10. But not any more."
The Gilley's at the New Frontier isn't close to the size of the original. The 10,000-square-foot club is about one-fifth the size of the Houston club, and has a total capacity of 600, or 450 for a theater-seating show.
The saloon will showcase live entertainment (for a $5 cover charge) every night except Monday, when the club is dark.
"It's expensive to have live entertainment every night instead of a DJ," Ruffin said. "In fact, it's about $1,000 a night more expensive, but we want people to be able to listen to great Western music every night."
Of course, one of the featured acts will be Gilley himself. He'll perform at the Dec. 3 opening and again on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
And music is only part of the attraction. Patrons can also, literally, pig out.
"This will be a true barbecue with pigs turning on a skewer, the whole thing," Gilley said. "We'll have Texas-type food, my own hot sauce and barbecue sauce, and I hope to be involved in all the products."
The club is assured heavy business in its early stages, fortuitously opening during the National Finals Rodeo and benefitting from Gilley's star power.
"We're in a very good location, and being connected to a big new hotel will really help," Gilley said. "I think we'll have a lot of business just from people stopping in out of curiosity."
However, long-term success is far from guaranteed in a city burgeoning with theme hotels, restaurants and casinos. One casualty was the Country Star, located on the Strip across from the Harley Davidson Cafe, which went the way of the dodo after a spiritless two-year run.
Club manager Larry Meehan, who ran the Country Star in Hollywood, Calif., is something of an expert in the country nightclub business, and said Gilley's is a far more viable operation than the Country Star.
"We're relying a lot on the name power of Mickey Gilley, there's no doubt about it," said Meehan, a quick-to-laugh native of Queensland, Australia, who has been involved in the nightclub business since the mid-70s. "There were a couple of problems at the Country Star. One was, it had no personality, no identifiable name. And there wasn't dancing, and I don't know how you can open a country nightclub without dancing."
Dancing, as well as the mechanical bull, was a focal point in "Urban Cowboy." As the 1978 Esquire article noted, "An urban cowboy doesn't have know how to brand or rope, but he must know how to dance."
"Country music will always be linked with dancing," Gilley said. "It's an ever-evolving thing. The craze comes and goes, but it's still a pretty stable activity for true country music fans."
Gilley is also confident the club will prosper as long as "Urban Cowboy," which has held up quite well over the years as a slice of Americana, remains in the public's psyche.
"I love that movie still," Gilley said. "Every time it runs on TV, it's a two-hour commercial for us."
And for the venerable country star, that's a big yee-haw.
archive
