Videos : Garry Allan : Every Storm

 

Videos : Garry Allan : Every Storm

Who Is Garry Allan?
Gary Allan Herzberg (born December 5, 1967) is an American country music artist, known professionally as Gary Allan.

Signed to Decca Records in 1996, Allan made his debut on the United States country music scene with the release of his single "Her Man", the lead-off to his gold-certified debut album Used Heart for Sale, which was released in 1996 on Decca Records. A second album, It Would Be You, followed in 1998 on Decca. Allan's third album, Smoke Rings in the Dark, was his first album for MCA Nashville (to which he has been signed ever since) and the first platinum album of his career. Its successors, Alright Guy (2001) and See If I Care (2003), were all certified platinum as well, while 2005's Tough All Over and 2007's Greatest Hits were both certified gold. A seventh studio album, Living Hard, was released later in 2007.

Overall, Allan's nine studio albums and Greatest Hits package have produced 26 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including three that reached Number One: "Man to Man" and "Tough Little Boys" in 2003, and "Nothing On but the Radio" in 2004. Eight more of his singles have reached the Top Ten on this chart as well: "Her Man", "It Would Be You", "Right Where I Need to Be", "The One", "Best I Ever Had" (a cover of a Vertical Horizon song), "Life Ain't Always Beautiful", "Watching Airplanes" and "Every Storm (Runs Out of Rain)". Allan's latest album, Get Off on the Pain, was released on March 9, 2010.

Gary Allan Herzberg was born and raised in La Mirada, California, to Harley and Mary Herzberg. To ensure that the family would focus on music, Allan's mother insisted that the family's guitars would always remain visible in the home. At age thirteen, Allan began playing in honky tonks with his father. Two years later, he was offered his first recording contract, from A&M Records, but rejected the deal. His parents wanted him to finish his education and his father felt that Allan had yet to develop his own distinctive style. Despite his commitment to finishing school, Allan reflects that he was rarely alert in class. "I played the bars at night, I was half asleep when I got to school. I thought sleep was what you did when you got to school."

After finishing school, he continued to play in the bars with his band, the Honky Tonk Wranglers. Many of the venues they played were packed, and promoters often tried to move them to larger clubs. The moves would have required him to stop playing some of the older country music, such as covers of George Jones songs, so Allan refused.

In 1987, Gary married his first wife, Tracy Taylor. They since divorced. He married model Danette Day on November 28, 1998 in South Carolina and they divorced in June 1999. His third wife, Angela (whom he wed on June 5, 2001), committed suicide on October 25, 2004.

Allan was introduced to songwriter/producer Byron Hill on August 28, 1993 by a mutual friend and talent-scout Jim Seal, at a bar called the Lion D'or in Downey, California, where Allan was already regularly performing. Seal and Hill had asked Allan if they could showcase an unsigned act that they were developing there. Hill had arranged to bring the head of A&R from a major label to the show to see this other act perform. Allan kindly let them use his stage for the event, giving the new act the opening performance slot that night. Hill promised Gary that they would make sure the A&R person remained there to see his portion of the show. Everyone was knocked out with Allan's performance, and very impressed with his voice. From that point on, Byron Hill began sending Gary songs. Without any serious funding at the time, Hill arranged for Allan to go into Seal's small studio in California to try his vocals on some of existing demo tracks that Byron had sent to Gary from Nashville, Tennessee. Meanwhile, Hill became head of A&R at BNA Entertainment on October 29 of that same year and immediately wanted to sign Allan to BNA, but the then current roster conditions and other circumstances related to the planned restructuring of RCA/BNA Nashville stood in the way.

In the meantime, Allan took a job selling cars. He left a demo tape in the glove box of a truck purchased by a wealthy couple. When the couple discovered that he was the singer, they wrote him a check for $12,000. This independent funding allowed Allan to go to Nashville to record some of the songs that were on that early demo tape with Byron Hill as producer. On September 11, 1995, they worked at Javelina Studios for a couple of days on the four songs that Hill immediately showed to labels. Allan's recordings brought serious responses from several labels including Mercury, RCA, and Decca. A meeting was then held at a Nashville hotel among Hill, Allan, and friend of Allan's, who was a program director for a radio station in California.

The meeting was to arrange two showcases in Los Angeles, California, to put Allan on stage at two of the radio station's regular nights at a local club. Byron arranged for staffers at the Nashville office of Decca Records to attend the first showcase held on November 1, 1995. Decca immediately wanted to sign Allan, and knowing that Byron was lining up other labels to see Gary, Decca asked them to cancel the second showcase. A rep from RCA was already booked to see the second showcase the following week, but the "bird-in-hand" deal offer was too tempting for both Byron and Gary, so they committed to the Decca offer. Decca staffer Mark Wright and Byron Hill co-produced Gary's first three albums for Decca beginning sessions on March 11, 1996 for Used Heart for Sale, then It Would Be You, both of which yielded top five singles, and later Smoke Rings in the Dark (which also included Tony Brown as a co-producer). It was during the recording of the first album that they recorded "It Must Have Been Ol' Santa Claus", as an added track to be packaged on various MCA/Decca Christmas compilations. Then Byron and Gary got a personal call from Harry Connick, Jr., the writer of the song, thanking them for the recording, during which he added a few of his New Orleans Jazz style "very cool man!" compliments. The Christmas recording has been since released on at least four compilations. The merger of Polygram, Decca, and MCA Records marked the closing of Decca and Gary was moved to MCA Records. (Read More)


Contact Garry Allan
Website | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | MySpace

Sources : Garry Allan Photo | Every Storm Video | Garry Allan Biography