Allan is the son of Harley and Mary Herzberg. He was raised in La Mirada, California. To ensure that the family would focus on music, Allan's mother insisted that the family guitars remain visible. At age thirteen, Allan began playing in honky tonks with his father. Two years later he was offered his first recording contract, but rejected the deal. His father felt that Allan had not developed his own distinctive style yet, and they wanted him to finish his education. Despite his commitment to finishing school, Allan reflects that he was rarely alert in class. "I played the bars at night, I was half asleep when I got to school. I thought sleep was what you did when you got to school."

He continued to play in the bars with his band, the Honky Tonk Wranglers. Many of the venues they played were packed, and promoters often tried to move them to larger clubs. The moves would have required him to stop playing some of the older country music, such as covers of George Jones songs, so Allan refused.

Gary was introduced to Songwriter/Producer Byron Hill on August 28, 1993 by a mutual friend and talent-scout Jim Seal, at a bar called the Lion D'or in Downey, CA. Gary was a regular performer there. Jim and Byron had asked Gary if they could showcase an unsigned act that they were developing at the Lion D'or. Byron had arranged to bring the head of A&R from a major label out to the show to see this other act perform. Gary kindly let them use his stage for the event, giving the new act the opening performance slot that night. They promised Gary that they would make sure the A&R person remained there to see his portion of the show. Everyone was knocked out with Gary's performance, and very impressed with his voice. From that point on Byron began sending Gary songs. Without any serious funding at the time, Jim Seal and Byron arranged for Gary to go into Jim's small studio in California to try his vocals on some of existing demo tracks that Byron had sent to Gary from Nashville. Meanwhile, Byron became head of A&R at BNA Entertainment on October 29th of that same year and immediately wanted to sign Gary to BNA, but the then current roster conditions and other circumstances connected with the planned restructuring of RCA/BNA Nashville stood in the way.

In the meantime, Allan took a job selling cars. He left his demo tape in the glove box of a car purchased by a wealthy couple. When they discovered that he was the singer, they immediately wrote him a check for $12,000 so that he could chase his dream.[4] This independent funding allowed Gary to come to Nashville to record some of the songs that were on that early demo tape with Byron Hill as producer. On September 11, 1995, they began working at Javelina Studios for a couple of days on the four songs that Byron immediately started showing to labels. Gary's recordings brought serious responses from several labels including Mercury, RCA, and Decca. A planning meeting was then held at a Nashville hotel between Byron, Gary, and friend of Gary's who was a program director for a radio station in California. The meeting was to arrange two showcases in Los Angeles which put Gary on stage at two of the radio station's regular nights at a local club. Byron arranged for staffers at the Nashville office of Decca Records to attend the first showcase held on November 1, 1995. Decca immediately wanted to sign Gary, and knowing that Byron was lining up other labels to see Gary, Decca asked them to cancel the second showcase. A rep from RCA was already booked to see the second showcase the following week, but the "bird-in-hand" deal offer was too tempting for both Byron and Gary, so they committed to the Decca offer. Decca staffer Mark Wright and Byron Hill co-produced Gary's first three albums for Decca beginning sessions on March 11, 1996 for "Used Heart For Sale", then "It Would Be You", both of which yielded top 5 singles, and later "Smoke Rings In The Dark" (which also included Tony Brown as a co-producer). It was during the recording of the first album that they also recorded "It Must Have Been Ol' Santa Claus", as an added track to be packaged on various MCA/Decca Christmas compilations. The song was written by Harry Connick, Jr.. Byron and Gary got a personal call from Harry thanking them for the recording, during which he added a few of his New Orleans Jazz style "very cool man!" compliments. The Christmas recording has been since released on at least four compilations. The merger of Polygram, Decca, and MCA Records marked the closing of Decca and Gary was moved to MCA Records.

--Wikipedia