Album cover for Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers' "Pilgrimage"
As we recently announced on our Facebook page, Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers are coming to the Sunrise Theatre in Fort Pierce this Friday night. That leads us to our latest Flashback post!
Larry Gatlin started his music career as a background singer for the legendary Kris Kristofferson before landing a record label deal as a solo artist with Monument Records in 1973. His brothers Steve and Rudy officially joined him and he re-branded as Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers in 1979 when he signed a new record label deal with Columbia Records.
The biggest hit of their career was the song featured in this video, “All the Gold in California.” Larry wrote it while stuck in a traffic jam in California, and it helped him win the 1979 ACM Male Vocalist of the Year Award. It was one of the 3 #1 hits in their career. They went on to have 17 Top 10 hits and 34 Top 40 hits.
One of the most unique traits that made them stand out is the style in which they wrote their songs. A traditional song starts with a verse, has a chorus, then has another verse or two and another run or two through the chorus. Often, as exemplified in hits “All the Gold in California” and “Houston (Means I’m One Day Closer to You),” they started the song off with the chorus, then went into the first verse.
Enjoy!