Nashville Scene: Gilley's Tapes Make Up Live Anthology Set; Faith Hill Embarks On First Solo...

ON THE RECORD: It's been almost 20 years since Gilley's in Pasadena, Texas, was immortalized in the movie "Urban Cowboy," and now the notorious honky-tonk is being celebrated by a deluxe CD package.
Q Records, QVC's music label, releases to retail the four-CD set "Live At Gilley's" on Tuesday (6). Represented on the anthology is a cross section of the hundreds of artists who played the club: Mickey Gilley himself, his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, the late Ernest Tubb, the late Faron Young, Fats Domino, Loretta Lynn, Rosanne Cash, and on and on. Those performances were taped for the radio show "Live At Gilley's," which ran on Westwood One and Armed Forces Radio from 1977 to 1989, but they very nearly didn't survive, Gilley tells Nashville Scene.
"There were over 900 24-track tapes," Gilley says. "We taped everybody who set foot onstage."
After he and his partner in the club parted ways, Gilley says, saving the tapes became a priority for him. "I went to the receiver [who granted the legal judgment in the partners' breakup] and said, "Just give me those tapes. I know this club is going to burn down someday.' "
He got the tapes, and the club burned to the ground in 1990.
Gilley subsequently sold the tapes to New Jersey producer Clark Enslin. "I sold them just for the value of the tape," Gilley says. "I told him, "I can't give you clearance on those performances.' " Enslin subsequently took the tapes to Q Records GM Alan Rubens.
Other releases coming this year include other anthologies, as well as single-artist live releases by Carl Perkins, Johnny PayCheck, the Bellamy Brothers, Domino, Bobby Bare, Lewis, Young, and Freddy Fender. The Atlantic Group distributes Q Records.
Gilley recently opened a new Gilley's Club in the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas and has a music theater and cafe in Branson, Mo.
PEOPLE: Faith Hill launches her first solo tour Friday (9) in Minneapolis. The tour is linked to Hill's Family Literacy Project and Gen. Colin Powell's America's Promise‹The Alliance for Youth. Concertgoers are asked to bring children's books to the shows.
Toby Keith and Mercury Nashville have parted ways after eight years.
THINGS: The Academy of Country Music (ACM) will designate its Pioneer Award as "the Cliffie," in honor of the late Cliffie Stone, who died last year. Performers for the ACM Awards show, slated for May 5, will include Garth Brooks, Faith Hill, Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Martina McBride, Tim McGraw, Reba McEntire, Clay Walker, Dixie Chicks, and Jo Dee Messina.
The Louisiana Hayride will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a Homecoming show Saturday (3) in Shreveport, La. Willie Nelson and former Louisiana Gov. Jimmie Davis will headline. Jett Williams will perform on the stage where her father, Hank, made his mark, back in 1948 when he joined the Hayride.
TNT's "An All-Star Tribute To Johnny Cash" will be taped Tuesday (6) at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom. Performers include Marty Stuart, Brooks & Dunn, June Carter Cash, Sheryl Crow, and Chris Isaak. The show airs on the channel April 18.
BlackHawk will host the first Run on the Row June 19, to end Fan Fair week. The 5K and one-mile runs will benefit the Frances Williams Preston Laboratories of the T.J. Martell Foundation for Leukemia, Cancer, and AIDS Research at the Vanderbilt Cancer Center.