Crazy Horse No Stranger to Country Music’s Stars : Fred Reiser’s Little Santa Ana Steak House Still Drawing the Big Names From Nashville as It Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary

It’s a rare country band that hasn’t played a sprightly, swinging number about honky-tonk delights or twanged a sad waltz about barroom heartbreak.

But when it comes to nightclub heaven and nightclub hell, Mickey Gilley has a special perspective.

In the early 1980s, the club in Pasadena, Tex. that bore the country singer’s name was the toast of the music world. John Travolta and Deborah Winger had been seen rompin’ and romancin’ and ridin’ the mechanical bucking bull at Gilley’s in the film “Urban Cowboy,” making the gigantic nightclub a cowboy-hatted ‘80s equivalent of Birdland, the Cotton Club or the Copacabana in terms of renown and fashion-setting impact.

But Gilley’s is closed now, locked shut in the aftermath of a lawsuit in which Gilley claimed that the club had been allowed to deteriorate to the point where it was ruining his good name. The trouble, he maintained in winning a $17-million judgment, was that while he was on the road singing, the partner who was supposed to be managing the club let it slide downhill, mistreating patrons and performers alike.

Having gone through his share of misadventures in clubland, Gilley feels some extra appreciation when he sees a first-class saloon operation. And that, he says, is what he comes across each year when he plays at the Crazy Horse Steak House in Santa Ana.

“I would very much like to see Gilley’s open again if it could be a place like the Crazy Horse,” Gilley said. “It’s a shame I wasn’t in business with a gentleman like Fred Reiser, because he takes care of business.”

Gilley isn’t the only one in the country music business saying nice things about the Crazy Horse and Reiser, the operating partner who runs the club’s restaurant and saloon business and books the acts that play there. The Crazy Horse, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week, has won three consecutive Nightclub of the Year awards from the Academy of Country Music. To go with those three hat-shaped trophies, Reiser recently won the Country Music Assn.’s “SRO” award for 1989 as the top promoter and talent buyer on the national country scene.

All of this amounts to a great deal of recognition for a very cozy nightclub. With only 250 seats, the Crazy Horse, with its wooden floors and a traditional-cum-Disney Western decor that includes moving figurines of cowpokes (but no mechanical bull), is one of the smallest nightclubs in the country regularly featuring big-name talent.

To Gilley, it is the club’s personal touch that sets it apart. “Fred treats you like he’s glad to have you. That means a lot to an act coming in. He takes care of all the guys in the group, including the crew. It’s not just the artist--he takes care of everyone that’s working” with meals and other perks. “One time, when I needed a car for something, he said ‘No problem,’ and got a car for me. The little amenities that he does come back to him. You don’t mind going in to play for a gentleman who treats you like that.”

At 47, Reiser is a most dignified-looking saloon keeper. A tall, polite and soft-voiced man in a dark, Western-cut suit, boots and a string tie, he projects the image of a genteel rancher or grower. Reiser and the Crazy Horse don’t represent the rowdy, good ol’ boy side of the country and Western mythos, but the more sober, conservative side that traces its roots to settlers who moved west seeking to reap prosperity from the land, rather than to sow wild oats on the range and in the barrooms.

“ ‘Country with class’ is our motto,” Reiser said, seated in his office across the parking lot from the Crazy Horse, where his backdrop is a wall full of photos of country and pop stars who have played the club. “We’ve never had any honky-tonk brawls or broken chairs or (scenes from) Clint Eastwood movies.”

When the Crazy Horse opened 10 years ago, Reiser was a restaurant man, not a music man. He had worked his way up from being a waiter at the Chart House restaurant in Newport Beach to a partnership in the Ancient Mariner-Rusty Pelican restaurant chain. With three other partners, Jim Knapp, Brad Miller and Dennis Senft, Reiser decided in the late ‘70s that Orange County was ripe for a restaurant and nightclub operation built around an Old West concept.

“The thought was that a lot of Orange County people enjoyed the ranch life,” Reiser said. “The rodeo every year when it came to Orange County was always sold out. Our Western motif was actually early Orange County. A lot of the artifacts (in the club’s decor) were from the Irvine Ranch or local growers--things that reflect back to turn-of-the-century Orange County.”

During the time when Reiser and his partners were planning and launching the Crazy Horse, the “Urban Cowboy” craze that brought country music and style into the national mainstream hadn’t yet hit.

“Everyone was discoing their hearts out in those days,” Reiser said, a wry note in his voice. “John Travolta was still riding the subway instead of the mechanical bull.”

As far as live music was concerned, the Crazy Horse figured to have a free range in Orange County, with the well-established Palomino club in North Hollywood the nearest competitor playing name country acts.

A novice when it came to promoting concerts, Reiser took a weeklong trip to Nashville soon after the Crazy Horse had opened to get a feel for the business and to start spreading the new club’s name among country music agents and managers. He never considered hiring a music biz pro as a consultant or talent buyer. “I always feel that you best represent yourself” was Reiser’s rule.

Reiser found out upon arriving in Nashville just how much he had to learn about the country music business.

“I had anticipated finding nightclub after nightclub with all these people coming in,” he recalled. “I had expected to find a lot more of the glamour and the actual performers” dotting the Nashville landscape, the way they do in Hollywood. “But it’s very closed-in. There’s not a lot of exposure. I realized I was not going to be an overnight situation with the phone ringing off the hook the next morning” with talent brokers vying to send their acts straight to Santa Ana.

Early on, the Crazy Horse stuck to booking local talent. By mid-1980, the Urban Cowboy phenomenon had kicked in, which Reiser said was a helpful but not crucial development in the Crazy Horse’s growth. After six months, the club undertook its first big promotion, a $50-a-ticket benefit for children’s charities featuring veteran country star Ray Price.

“That was the test, breaking the ice,” Reiser said. “It was well-received, so we did Hoyt Axton two months later.” By the end of 1981, the Crazy Horse had built up to the steady cruising pace it has maintained ever since, presenting one major-name country or adult pop act each week, either in one-night stands on Mondays or two-night engagements stretching to Tuesdays.

Reiser says the first “breakthrough” that helped the Crazy Horse build a national reputation came late in 1981 when the “20/20” television show was profiling Ray Charles and the producers wanted footage of him playing in an intimate setting. Charles’ manager had been to the Crazy Horse and liked the club. That good impression led to the first of 18 performances at the Crazy Horse by Charles, who regularly uses the club as a testing ground for breaking in his band before touring. Reiser cites a 1982 appearance by Merle Haggard as another key boost that raised the Crazy Horse’s profile in the music industry.

“Pretty soon we had people calling us,” Reiser said--although the Crazy Horse’s small size still makes it a challenge to land acts that typically can play much larger venues.

The Crazy Horse’s booking philosophy is deliberately conservative, Reiser said. The club tends to feature tested draws rather than promising newcomers who haven’t yet hit their commercial stride. For example, Kathy Mattea, the Country Music Assn.’s 1989 female vocalist of the year, didn’t headline at the Crazy Horse until this year, even though her agents had offered bookings to the Crazy Horse while she was still working her way up the ladder.

“It costs as much to advertise a new artist as to advertise Ray Charles,” Reiser said. “Sometimes the built-in costs will preclude a new artist. One of my all-time faux pas was that in ‘83-’84 there was a group called the Judds available, and I turned ‘em down. Three or four months later I said, ‘I’m ready.’ ” But by then, Reiser said, the Judds already had moved past the club stage.

“I’ve turned down some awfully good shows (by artists) that turned out to be great successes,” Reiser said. But he also points to Randy Travis, Reba McEntire and Gary Morris as examples of future stars whom the Crazy Horse booked on their way up.

The chance to see name acts up close doesn’t come cheaply. Tickets for major shows at the Crazy Horse typically cost $25 or more.

“On the phone sometimes, people say, ‘Gosh, $25 a ticket,’ ” Reiser said. “We try to tell them, ‘Yes, but you’re right up there with ‘em’ ” in a club where all seats, according to Reiser, are within 40 feet of the stage. “Our back row seat is front and center at any other venue,” Reiser said. And, with all seats reserved, “you don’t have to worry, ‘Do I have to be the first person at the door with my elbows out to get a table?’ These are the amenities that go into the ticket price.”

The public certainly hasn’t balked at paying top dollar. Reiser said that attendance at Crazy Horse concerts is running 97% this year, up from 94% in 1988.

The rewards of success don’t show only on the ledger, Reiser said. “There are a lot of things I do that are a one-to-one relationship” with the musicians he books. “A lot of it culminates in a friendship. I try to keep the personal side alive. It’s not just a contract.”

That can mean a birthday card for Tanya Tucker or sending Marie Osmond a present for her new baby from the Crazy Horse staff. Last fall, when Waylon Jennings started feeling ill between shows at the Crazy Horse, friendship meant putting the singer’s well-being ahead of financial considerations when Reiser insisted that a reluctant Jennings cancel three sold-out shows and check into a hospital.

“Waylon said, ‘I’ll be OK, I’ll get me up on stage and we’ll have fun.’ He was bound and determined,” Reiser recalled. “He calls everybody ‘hoss,’ and he was being a real hoss.” Jennings spent a few days hospitalized in Tustin with a blood clot, in a prelude to subsequent heart problems from which the veteran singer has since recovered.

“In the hospital in Tustin was the last time he had a cigarette,” Reiser said. “I check on him now and then, to make sure he’s been a good boy. I don’t want to pace any more hospital wards.”

The Crazy Horse’s own health as a business has been steadily good from the beginning, Reiser said. Competitive stresses have been minimal, leaving it the only nightclub in Southern California featuring a regular diet of name country talent. The Palomino changed musical formats a few years ago, and the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano only occasionally dips into the country and conservative pop markets that are the Crazy Horse’s bread and butter.

“We bump heads, but I try to respect (Reiser’s) territory,” said Ken Phebus, the Coach House’s booking agent. “He has a long relationship with Orange County doing country music. They look to him to see a show done well. It’s no mistake that the guy’s the Country Nightclub of the Year every year. Everyone thinks real highly of him.”

The Southampton, a former dinner theater in San Clemente, was scheduled to launch a new country-oriented concert format this weekend with shows by Zaca Creek and Asleep at the Wheel, a group that has played the Crazy Horse in the past. Reiser said he doesn’t see that interfering with his market.

“We seem to be drawing from Mission Viejo north,” he said. “My immediate thoughts are that this shouldn’t be too much of an impact.”

In fact, Reiser said, he and his partners are scouting for a location in Los Angeles, Riverside or San Diego counties that would be suitable for developing a second Crazy Horse patterned after the Santa Ana operation.

Mickey Gilley’s ears perked up when he heard about that. “Let’s tell him, ‘Don’t put the name Crazy Horse on it,’ ” Gilley instructed over the phone from his office in Texas. “Let’s put ‘Gilley’s’ on it. It’d be fun to be associated in a nightclub with someone like Fred, because I know it would run proper.”

The Crazy Horse Steak House’s 10th anniversary celebration includes shows Monday night at 7 and 10 by Mel Tillis, with tickets priced at $27.50. Marty Stuart plays a free anniversary show Tuesday night, with doors opening at 6 p.m. The club is at 1580 Brookhollow Drive in Santa Ana. Information: (714) 549-1512.