“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.”

This isn’t faint praise from Garth Brooks, and is hard to refute when you look at the resume of Larry Bastian, and especially how important it was to the early and continued success of Garth’s career. Bastion contributed to the catalogs of many greats. But it was really his relationship with Garth Brooks where he would cement his legacy in country music.

On Garth’s debut, self-titled album from 1989, Larry Bastian co-wrote “I’ve Got a Good Thing Going,” “Cowboy Bill,” and “Nobody Gets Off in This Town.” But it was on Garth’s album No Fences from 1990 where Bastian made arguably his greatest contribution, co-writing “Unanswered Prayers” with Pat Alger and Garth himself—a song that would go to #1 and become one of Garth’s signature tracks.

That same success “Unanswered Prayed” found would befall the Garth song “Rodeo” that Larry Bastian wrote by himself, and became one of the big singles from Garth’s third album Ropin’ The Wind from 1991. Just those two song probably put Bastian in a pantheon of songwriters that is elite, even if no songwriting halls of Fame ever recognized him.

One of the reasons Larry Bastian never received the recognition he probably deserved is he wasn’t a creature of Nashville. He was a a guy from the country in rural California. Before he ever wrote a song, he worked for the Department of Agriculture as a biologist in the San Joaquin Valley of California. This is where he was born and raised, in the Springville area north of Bakersfield and south of Fresno, eventually working in Bakersfield’s Kern County among other places.

It’s not hard to imagine that in these circumstances, Larry Bastian was influenced by country music. Out of high school, he worked on farms and was a cowboy, and wrote songs when he could. While opening and conversing with touring country artists that would come through town like Buck Owens, they came to know Bastian and compelled him to send his songs to Nashville. Eventually he did, and he started to find success.

Janie Fricke was the first to record Bastian’s “This Ain’t Tennessee and He Ain’t You” in 1980, but multiple other artists would follow suit. Bastian’s first Top 40 success was with Sammi Smith’s recording of “Sometimes I Cry Alone” in 1981. He also wrote the Lefty Frizzell tribute “Lefty” form David Frizzell and Merle Haggard.

Throughout his career, Bastian would also write for Willie Nelson, Vern Gosdin, George Jones, Reba McEntire, Buck Owens, Tracy Byrd, Tammy Wynette, and many more. But his success was always rather moderate until Garth Brooks came along in the early ’90s. After “Unanswered Prayers” hit, Sammy Kershaw took notice, and recorded a couple of Top 20 hits by Bastian, namely 1992’s “Yard Sale” and 1997’s “If You’re Gonna Walk, I’m Gonna Crawl.”

This whole time, Larry Bastian remained living in the San Joaquin Valley of California. That is where he died in Porterville on Sunday, April 6th. He was 90 years old. Porterville is where Bastian graduated from high school in 1952. When asked why he never left for Nashville, he’d say because he didn’t want to write like all of the other people in Nashville. He wanted to remain connected to the country.