Colorful, intense, successful, controversial, and diverse; the world of Gary Green is a world of business, literature, music, gaming, technology, travel ... and mostly of adventurer. Today he is often cited as one of the most written-about figures in modern casino business circles (or as the ultimate gambler to some ; given his unorthodox and out-of-the-box business models or since his appearance in the World Series of Poker a few years ago). But by his mid-40’s, Gary Green had become a genuine pioneer of the he first dot-com era and had twice won a place as a finalist for the Best of COMDEX (the international technology expo); he architected the framework for the most powerful e-commerce system at that time (with, at one time, 5% of all transactions on the planet using his software). That business acumen made him an IPO veteran and later in the employee of Trump casinos, of Forest City Ratner, and of other business titans of the era. He is also known as an iconic Americana singer-songwriter-poet (inducted into the California Music Hall of Fame; his albums are part of the Smithsonian Institution's Folkways collection).
Gary’s “outlaw” persona was initially forged through his incisive and often provocative lyrics, which he fearlessly showcased at appearances for civil rights, labor, anti-war, LGBTQ+ rights, and progressive causes. But for Gary, “outlaw” was not merely a musical genre; it was a way of life wrapped in “songs powerful enough to get you killed” — quite literally!
Targeted by the remnants of the COINTELPRO policy of spying on and disrupting the lives of U.S. citizens, he was driven “underground” for a decade where he continued to
taunt authority and was defended & cleared) by renowned super-attorney William Kunstler with a cadre of celebrity supporters.
Hell, there should be a Ballad of Gary Green -- Pete Seeger
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Honored in The Congressional Record and given a special citation by the Governor of Maryland, Gary Green is widely known as a genuine "character." He once was regarded as one of America's most intense folksingers & rock poets praised by the likes of Johnny Cash, Alan Ginsberg, and the “outlaw” country music movement.
Gary Green California Music Hall of Fame Inductee
as well as civil rights & labor unions. Friendships with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and other country music “outlaws” plus his performing at rallies for
His storied life includes once owning an actual circus, being a long-time advocate of Native American sovereignty rights
The American Indian Movement, SCLC, Black Panther Party, and labor unions, his southern hillbilly roots music stood out among the usual fare.
A second-generation marketing innovator, he continues to make his presence known as a living and true renaissance boomer of music, business, technology, literature, finance, production, international business development, and casino gaming. In the 1960's he purportedly had one of the 22nd highest IQ's ever recorded (based on the 1960 Terman and Merrill revision of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale); a badge that Gary scoffingly rejects as “pure hocum”. As a labor union leader, he was one of the masterminds of the single largest organizing drive in American history; so effective that 30 years later a major Las Vegas slot machine manufacturer canceled a casino speaking engagement, fearing that their employees might be inspired to sign union cards after hearing Gary’s life story. On the cutting edge of the 1970’s avant-garde twilight zone between coming-of-age baby boomers and the rest of America, one week Gary would be at the side of a veteran member of Congress giving policy or strategic advice and the next week in Greenwich Village playing guitar in one of the dimly lit, crowd-packed coffee houses. The Baltimore Sun best described Gary's ability to touch, convince, and motivate broad-based audiences: “Mr. Green had them: a young couple with a three-week old baby, a couple well into middle age and approximately equal numbers of those who seemed to remember the Fifties, and those who looked to have been children in the Sixties, not of them." Born in North Carolina and raised in the hills of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, Gary Green is a braided paradox of simple, working-class Southerners and the high-tech, urban intelligentsia. With a southern charm more akin to John "Doc" Holiday and Rhett Butler than The Cable-Guy and the redneck set, he is often referred to as one of the last southern gentleman scoundrels. He served his apprenticeship singing folkie-acoustic versions of Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings, and Johnny Cash songs in New York City folk circles and as a daily newspaper reporter in the South covering the goriest of murders, drug raids, and government corruptions. Hence, others knew him as an award-winning journalist that had twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize ... before the age of thirty. From organizing a topical music project with Broadside Magazine, Pete Seeger, and the late folksingers Phil Ochs and Rev. Fred Kirkpatrick, to allegedly "running guns" for Native Americans at the siege of Wounded Knee to passing in and out of the "Berlin Wall" in old East Germany, to midnight drug raids in the company of heavily armed southern cops, to early morning Washington meetings with members of Congress and heads of state, to creation of new Internet technologies to being a professional gambler and later a top casino executive; the world of Gary Green is a world of adventure.
His roman-a-clef music autobiography, "THE LEGEND DIES ON" offers further insight into his extraordinary life and career.