Photo: Larry Bastian | By Connor Surmonte, New York Post | Garth Brooks has broken his silence after songwriter Larry Bastian, who worked with the country star on hit songs like “Rodeo” and “Unanswered Prayers,” passed away this month at the age of 90.
“This was a great man… a cowboy, a poet, and a true friend,” Brooks, 63, told The Post in a statement on Wednesday night. “I was lucky enough to be taken in by him as a student when I first moved to Nashville.”
“I love Larry Bastian,” the “Friends in Low Places” singer added.
The legendary country songwriter’s son, Nick, first announced the sad news of his father’s death on Facebook and confirmed that Bastian passed away on Sunday, April 6, in California.
“The Lord called Dad home last night,” Bastian’s son wrote, per The Mirror. “He taught us at a very young age gun safety, along with teaching us hunting and fishing. He let us be boys, which seems to be a dying thing these days.”
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Brooks previously celebrated the songwriter back in 1995 when he called Bastian one of “music’s greatest writers of all time.” . . .
Besides the song “Rodeo,” Bastian also helped pen the hugely popular hit “Unanswered Prayers” with Brooks and fellow songwriter Pat Alger in 1991.
Brooks was so impressed with Bastian that he included a story about the songwriter and “Unanswered Prayers” in the liner notes of his 1994 compilation album, “The Hits.”
“Pat Alger and I worked on this song quite a long time without a hook, without the line. We passed it by Larry Bastian, and it was as if it was meant to be,” the country crooner wrote. “Larry, his wife, Myrna, and I were taking a walk down 18th Avenue, and he looked at me and said, ‘Oh, that’s simple. This song should be called ‘Unanswered Prayers’ because some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.’”
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“They have a saying, ‘You can’t get out of the way of a hit song,’” he added, “and that’s so right.”
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/garth-brooks-breaks-his-silence-after-songwriter-larry-bastian-s-death-at-90-this-was-a-great-man/
Photo: Larry Bastian