Crystal Gayle talks about ‘Brown Eyes,’ her sister Loretta Lynn and her floor-length hair

It’s hard to follow your older sibling(s) into the music business.

Ask Janet Jackson. Or Marie Osmond. Or Solange, Beyoncé’s sister.

Country star Crystal Gayle was one of the first younger siblings of a star to make it work. And she attributes some of her success to pivotal advice from big sis Loretta Lynn: Quit singing country and go middle-of-the-road pop.

“Loretta thought I should be different. She knew the business and that we would be compared,” said Gayle, who returns to Minneapolis on Sunday at the Parkway Theater. “People have to know you for you.”

Nineteen years younger, Gayle grew up in different circumstances than her sister. Their coal miner father had developed black lung disease in Kentucky, and the family relocated to Wabash, Ind., after mom got a job there in a restaurant. Gayle, the youngest of eight children and the only one born in a hospital, was 4 at the time of the move.

Growing up in an urban environment in a town of 12,000 or so, Gayle heard all kinds of music but naturally gravitated toward a country career, especially after filling in for her ill sister at the Grand Ole Opry at age 16.

Gayle scored a couple of Nashville hits, including “I’ll Get Over You,” before she released the crossover smash “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” in 1977.

Her producer, Allen Reynolds, had to fight for the song because songwriter Richard Leigh was set to pitch it to British singer Shirley Bassey.

“He was sending it out to California for Shirley to hear it and I think Toni Tennille,” Gayle said from Nashville. “When Allen heard it the night before they were going to send it, he said, ‘You’re not going to send that song anywhere.’”

One of the keys to “Brown Eyes” is the opening piano line crafted by studio ace Hargus “Pig” Robbins.

“That’s how Pig heard it,” Gayle said. “You don’t want to write every note. Pig had soul.

“That’s the first take you hear on the radio. I did try to re-sing it and it didn’t work. Allen put strings on it; that was the only thing added later.”

“Brown Eyes” has become Gayle’s signature in a long career of ups and downs and side turns.

For starters, when she signed with Decca Records at age 19, the label told Brenda Gail Webb that she couldn’t use her first name because one Brenda — namely Brenda Lee — was enough on Decca.

Big sister Loretta helped pick a stage name when they drove by a Krystal fast-food chain. “That’s your name,” she said. It was refashioned as Crystal Gayle (after her middle name Gail).

Her husband/manager Bill Gatzimos, who has known her since high school, tends to call her Brenda at home and Crystal when talking business. Theirs is one of the longest marriages in country music — since 1971 — right behind Brenda Lee’s and Dolly Parton’s.

Decca envisioned Gayle as a Loretta Lynn clone. It didn’t work. Once Gayle, heeding Loretta’s advice, signed with United Artists in 1974, producer Reynolds gave her a country-pop sound and the road to a long career.

She became popular enough to star in two CBS-TV specials in 1980, and two years later she took a detour by teaming with gravelly voiced pop singer Tom Waits on the soundtrack to the Francis Ford Coppola movie “One From the Heart,” starring Teri Garr and Frederic Forrest.

“Tom Waits was taking a train to L.A. and he heard me sing ‘Cry Me a River.’ He thought that was the type of voice he wanted for the soundtrack,” Gayle recalled. “It worked because it was so totally opposite in our voices.”

In the ‘70s and ‘80s, Gayle chalked up 18 No. 1 country singles, including “Talking in Your Sleep” and “You and I” with Eddie Rabbitt.

Her most recent album, 2019′s “You Don’t Know Me: Classic Country,” includes her renditions of “Hello Walls” and “Walkin’ After Midnight” as well as a 1969 demo sung with Loretta Lynn of “I’ve Cried (The Blue Right Out of My Eyes).”

Besides her blue eyes, the one constant in Gayle’s career is her striking floor-length hair.

“I wash it in the shower, let it dry, if I’m not performing, it’s [worn] up a lot because it does get caught in everything,” explained Gayle, 73, noting her hair is now shorter, somewhere between her knees and ankles. “I’m lucky to have healthy hair. I always attribute it to my American Indian blood, Cherokee. All the girls in our family, they could have long hair to the ground if they wanted to but I was the only one crazy enough to do it. It is a lot of upkeep. Once you get into the rhythm of it, it’s OK.”

Her hair has its own history. Like the time in junior high when she gave herself a perm and “messed it up.” So she went to a hairdresser, who cut it extremely short, which upset Gayle’s mother. “My hair looked like Midge, Barbie’s friend,” she said referring to the popular dolls.

When her career was taking off, Gayle was encouraged to get the au courant “big hair,” but she couldn’t afford a hairdresser to travel with her. “I could wash it and let it dry and hit the stage. That’s how it became long.”

Her hair presents challenges. For instance, she wears it up when she cleans. Sometimes, though, she gets headaches from wearing it up. So she lets it down. But she’s not complaining.

“It’s hard to get rid of it,” she admitted. “It’s almost like another child.”

When: 7 p.m. Sun.

Where: Parkway Theater, 4814 Chicago Av. S., Mpls.

Tickets: $59-$89, theparkwaytheater.com.