Bass Guitar
Gary originally played guitar but he started playing Bass guitar when the gospel group at his church needed a bass player. They played many of the local churches and even appeared on a local Houston TV station.
In 1985 Gary got asked to play bass for the Conroe Opry. He play there off and on until it closed Dec of 1986. This is where he met Larry Roberds and Rick and Fred Jones (Conroe Opry owner). In 1988 Gary decided to get some of the Conroe Opry band members together and start a band. The first job was at the Montgomery Country fairgrounds near Conroe, Tx. But he didn’t have a steel player. So he had his wife call some of the local music stores in the area. She only found one Steel Guitar player that was available, “some guy named Pee Wee that use to play for Hank Thompson”. Gary gave Pee Wee Whitewing a call. At that time Pee Wee had not played for 20 years and was kind of nervous. But as you can imagine he was amazing. The job went well. This encouraged Pee Wee to book the band at the April Sound’s Country Club on Lake Conroe where he then lived. This turned out to be a good job with guest musicians setting in with us from time to time. Some of those were Bob White (Fiddle) Rufus Thibodeaux, (Fiddle) and Kevin Carter (Fiddle). This was the start of the Heart of Texas Band which at that time included Gary, Larry Roberds, Pee Wee Whitewing and Rick Jones.
Since then Gary has played many of the Opry’s around southeast Texas with the Heart of Texas and other bands and these usually included Larry Roberds and Rick Jones. Here are a few: Conroe Opry 1985 – 1986 (Conroe,Tx), Texas Opry 1993 – 1994 (Magnolia, Tx), East Texas Jamboree 1992 (Livingston, Tx), Kirbyville Country Music Show 1993 – present (Kirbyville, Tx), The Rice Theater Music Show 1998 – present (Crowley, La).
Gary played with the Heart of Texas at the 1995 Swing Festival in Texarkana , 1996 Western Swing Festival in Snyder Texas and in 1998 at Ronnie’s Steel Guitar Show in Hot Springs Arkansas. It was at this Steel Guitar Show that he play with Steel Guitar players Hal Rugg, Herby Wallace, Stu Basore, Buck Grantham, Tom Brumley, Junior Knight and of course Pee Wee Whitewing.