Garth Brooks breaks his silence after songwriter Larry Bastian’s death at 90: ‘This was a great man’
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.”
“Thank you Dad for inspiring in how I raised my kids,” the tribute continued. “I took them to work with me and raised them to be free range country kids and now they are raising their’s the same way. I love you Dad.”
Brooks previously celebrated the songwriter back in 1995 when he called Bastian one of “music’s greatest writers of all time.”
“If one looks down the list of music’s greatest writers of all time, I couldn’t imagine the list being complete without the name of Larry Bastian,” the country music superstar said.
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.'”
“This is probably the truest song I have ever been involved with as a writer,” Brooks continued. “This actually happened to my wife and me when we went back home to Oklahoma. Every time I sing this song, it teaches me the same lesson…happiness isn’t getting what you want, it is wanting what you’ve got.”
Besides Garth Brooks, Bastian also wrote songs for country music superstars like Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Conway Twitty, Reba McEntire, and Buck Owens.
“That type of drive, first off, you have to know that you can do it,” Bastian explained during an interview on “The Paul Leslie Hour” in 2020. “There was no doubt in my mind that I could write a song. I think you have to be that driven to succeed, and then there’s a lot of luck.”
“They have a saying, ‘You can’t get out of the way of a hit song,'” he added, “and that’s so right.”
Bastian’s death this month came as Brooks remains dogged by sexual assault allegations launched by his former makeup artist.
