Courtesy Pixabay
Happy 72nd Birthday to singer/songwriter Larry Gatlin, this weekend. With his brothers Steve and Rudy, they have long been fixtures in country music with hits such as “All the Gold In California”, “Houston (Means I’m One Day Closer to You” and many others. The Gatlin Brothers have scored 18 hit albums. Only three of the songs on the albums were not written by Larry Gatlin. One of his songs, “Help Me”, was a hit for other artists. And, “Help Me” served to save a friend of Gatlin’s.
Larry Gatlin has been blessed with much help from other people in his career. The late Dottie West sent him a plane ticket to Nashville, so he could write and pitch his songs. Larry set about doing just that, and, due to his deep Christian faith and roots, found a church to join. It was singing in that church, that changed his life. According to an article in the Tennessean,
(Kris)Kristofferson credits Gatlin’s “Help Me,” a song Gatlin wrote less than a year after moving to Nashville, with prompting his spiritual awakening.
Kristofferson heard Gatlin sing “Help Me” in church and later told Ralph Emery on the DVD series “Country Legends Series Volume 2” that the “profound religious experience” inspired him to write “Why Me.” Jimmie Snow was the preacher the Sunday Gatlin performed. When he addressed the congregation with, “If anyone is lost, please raise their hand,” Kristofferson said he felt his hand go up.
“I thought that would never happen,” Kristofferson told Emery. “I found myself getting up and walking down (to the front of the church) with all these people. And I don’t really know what (Snow) said to me. Whatever he said was such a release for me that I found myself weeping in public. I felt this forgiveness that I didn’t even know I needed.”
Kristofferson was so moved by his experience, that he went home after the church service and wrote “Why Me”, which is his only Number One hit as a recording artist.
Gatlin, meanwhile, pitched ‘Help Me’ to Elvis Presley, who recorded the top-ten double-sided hit in 1974. The flip side was “If You Talk In Your Sleep (Don’t Mention My Name). You can find ‘Help Me’ included on the album, “The Promised Land”. Kris Kristofferson also recorded ‘Help Me”, in 1972. It was the flip side of ‘Why Me’ and was included on the album ‘Jesus Was a Capricorn’.
‘Help Me’ is the story of a person who is tired of the world, who asks for reassurance and guidance from God. Here is Larry Gatlin singing ‘Help Me.’