Kenny Rogers: The Life and Legacy of a Legend
Kenny Rogers, who dominated the pop and country charts in the 1970s and 1980s with a string of sleekly tailored hits and won three Grammys, has died. He was 81.
Rogers “passed away peacefully at home from natural causes under the care of hospice and surrounded by his family,” a representative for the singer said in a statement.
Due to the national COVID-19 emergency, the family is planning a small private service at this time with a public memorial planned for a later date.
Tributes
Following his death, tributes have poured in from many celebrities, many of whom are in the country genre themselves. Dolly Parton, who was a friend and frequent collaborator of Rogers; posted a video on Twitter expressing her sadness that her “friend and singing partner” had died.
“You never know how much you love somebody until they’re gone,” Parton said.
“I know that we all know Kenny is in a better place than we are today. But I’m pretty sure he’s going to be talking to God sometime today if he ain’t already; he’s going to ask him to spread some light on a bunch of this darkness going on here,” Parton said in her video.
“I’ve had so many wonderful years and wonderful times with my friend Kenny, but above all the music and the success I loved him as a wonderful man and a true friend.”
Check out her tribute below:
The Grammys official Twitter led the tributes, saying they are “forever grateful” to Rogers. Boy George thanked Rogers in his tribute, remembering a time when he played Islands In The Stream for the late George Michael.
The Golden Globes hailed him as an “icon” and Piers Morgan labeled him “one of the all-time great country music stars and an utterly charming man.”
George Takei said his “voice will be missed. Matt Lucas sent a simple tweet of thanks for Rogers’ “beautiful music”. Brad Paisley turned to social media on Saturday (March 21) to pay tribute to Kenny Rogers with a powerful rendition of Sweet Music Man that packs an emotional wallop.
Paisley posted a video of himself singing the song solo, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. His face is creased with sorrow as he delivers the chorus of the classic song.
Check it out below:
Other celebrities, like country singer and The Voice host Blake Shelton, also remembered the musician in posts on Twitter. “I can’t express the impact Kenny Rogers the artist and the man had one me. He was always very kind and fun to be around,” he wrote.
Reba McEntire wrote, “Go rest high on that mountain. Please tell mama and daddy hi for me. Thank you for your friendship and your love. We are going to miss you but we are so happy you’re singing with the Angels in heaven. Can’t wait to see you again one of these days. Rest in peace my friend.”
Check out more tributes below:
Rogers was one of the progenitors of country-pop crossover at the superstar level. “I came into country music not trying to change country music but trying to survive,” he said in a 2016 interview with CMT.com.
“And so, I did songs that were not country but were more pop. Nowadays they’re not doing country songs at all. What they’re doing is creating their own genre of country music.
“But I told somebody the other day, country music is what country people will buy. If the country audience doesn’t buy it, they’ll kick it out. And if they do, then it becomes country music. It’s just era of country music we’re in.”
Background
Born and raised in Houston, he was the fourth of eight children in a poor family. He took to the guitar as an adolescent and would sometimes perform with another aspiring local musician and future star, Mickey Gilley.
His early professional career was stylistically eclectic. While in high school, he formed a rockabilly group, the Scholars, who recorded for Carlton Records, a local label. After a brief stint at the University of Houston, he played bass with the jazz groups of Bobby Doyle and Kirby Stone.
After moving to Los Angeles in 1966, he joined the folk-pop unit the New Christy Minstrels; a group that also numbered such performers as Carnes, the Byrds’ Gene Clark; Eve of Destruction vocalist Barry McGuire, and the Lovin’ Spoonful’s Jerry Yester among its members at one time or another.
First Edition Days
With fellow Minstrels Mike Settle, Terry Williams and Thelma Camacho, Rogers founded the rock-leaning group the First Edition in 1967. Fronted by Rogers, the group notched two top 10 pop hits.
Among those were Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) (No. 5, 1968), and Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town (No. 6, 1969), Mel Tillis’ downbeat song about the faithless wife of a handicapped Vietnam vet.
The First Edition’s fortunes began to wane in the early ’70s, and Rogers signed a solo deal with UA in 1976. He struck almost immediate pay dirt with Lucille, an absorbing vignette about a barroom encounter with a disillusioned woman and her estranged husband.
The number became Rogers’ first No. 1 country hit and reached No. 5 on the national pop chart. It also scored Rogers his first Grammy, for best male country vocal performance.
Rogers also partnered with long-time songstress West, and the duo racked up three No. 1 country singles for UA and then Liberty in 1978-81: Every Time Two Fools Collide, All I Ever Need Is You, and What Are We Doin’ in Love.
He notched five more No. 1 solo country singles by the end of the decade. The biggest of these were the Grammy-winning The Gambler (also No. 16 pop in 1978) and the backwoods narrative Coward of the County (also No. 3 pop in 1979).
They pushed the albums The Gambler and Kenny to No. 12 and No. 5, respectively, on the pop album charts. Each inspired a popular TV movie; Rogers would portray Brady Hawkes, protagonist of The Gambler, in a series of telepics that ran through 1994.
More accolades
After establishing himself commercially via rock- and pop-oriented singles with his group the First Edition; the prematurely grey Rogers was launched into the top rank of crossover country artists with some singles for United Artists Records.
His appealing, sometimes gritty voice propelled 20 solo 45s to No. 1 on the country charts from 1977-87. His 1980 reading of Lionel Richie’s Lady and his 1983 collaboration with Dolly Parton Islands in the Stream, also topped the pop lists.
He worked profitably with several other female vocalists, including Dottie West, Sheena Easton, Kim Carnes, and Anne Murray.
Country historian Bill C. Malone noted that Rogers’ style “has been the chief source of his immense success. Rogers is a consummate storyteller, with an intimate and compelling style that almost demands the listener’s concentration.”
“When his husky tenor voice slips down into a raspy, gravelly register, Rogers pulls the listener even further into his confidence”, Malone continued.
Rogers morphed his music success into a successful side career as an actor. His 1978 country chart-topper The Gambler spawned five popular TV movies, while some of his other hits also inspired small-screen features.
Check out the video for The Gambler below:
Rogers’ hits of the decade for Liberty and RCA found him moving increasingly into pop terrain and focusing on romantic balladry. Lady and Islands in the Stream solidified his standing as country’s biggest crossover attraction.
His rendering of Bob Seger’s We’ve Got Tonight with Sheena Easton ruled the country chart and rose to No. 6 on the pop chart. In all, he recorded 23 top 10 country hits during the decade; five of which crossed to the pop side.
Make No Mistake, She’s Mine, Rogers’ duet with singer-pianist Ronnie Milsap reaped him a Grammy for best country vocal duet performance.
Like many other stars of his era, Rogers began to fall out of fashion in the ’90s, as a younger generation of country musicians flexing a less countrypolitan style supplanted him.
He made his last toplining appearance in a pair of telepics as reformed gambler Jack MacShayne in 1994. In 1999, he notched a final No. 1 country hit, Buy Me a Rose, with Billy Dean and Alison Krauss.
In the new millennium, sporadic releases on several independent labels and majors Capitol Nashville and Warner Bros. Nashville performed respectably on the country album charts but produced no major hits.
Switching Lanes
From the ’90s forward, as he maintained a busy touring schedule, Rogers increasingly turned his attention to various entrepreneurial enterprises, opening a chain of fast-food chicken outlets, Kenny Rogers Roasters, and a Sprint car manufacturing firm, Gamblers Chassis.
He issued a memoir, Luck or Something Like It, in 2012, and a novel, What Are the Chances, in 2013. That same year, he was the recipient of the CMA Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award. He received a similar honour from CMT with its Artist of a Lifetime Award in 2015.
Retirement
Always active on the road, Rogers announced his retirement in September 2015, not long after a widely-aired commercial for Geico insurance saw him reprising The Gambler for comedic effect.
At the Oct. 25, 2017 tribute concert in Nashville, Rogers joined in jocular exchanges with some of the homage-payers, notably Parton, who quipped, “I want to see what condition your condition’s really in.”
They reprised their recorded duets of You Can’t Make Old Friends and Islands in the Stream, and Parton additionally sang him her own signature song, I Will Always Love You.
Check out the video for their iconic duet below:
Footage of the 2017 concert was filmed by Blackbird Productions but went unseen until it was set for inclusion in the A&E Biography special airing in April.
Rogers had announced a farewell tour in 2015 and was able to keep it going through December 2017.
In April 2018, shortly before he was to spend a few months finishing out the tour after a break; he announced that he was having to call off the remaining dates due to unspecified “health challenges.”
“I didn’t want to take forever to retire,” Rogers said his April 2018 statement. “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity to say farewell to the fans over the course of the past two years on The Gambler’s Last Deal tour.”
“I could never properly thank them for the encouragement and support they’ve given me throughout my career and the happiness I’ve experienced as a result of that.”
“I hope my fans understand that I’m a father first and a singer second,” Rogers said about his planned retirement from touring, in a 2016 interview with CMT.com, mentioning at that time that he had 11-year-old twin boys with his wife, Wanda Miller.
“As it turns out, I’m missing some very great parts of my boys’ lives. I know as well as anybody else how that time gets away from you. And I don’t want to miss it. I just worry about how much longer I’m going to be here, and I want to have time to spend with them. It’s pretty simple.”
Biography
A special, Biography: Kenny Rogers, had been announced by A&E earlier this month, set to air April 13. The special is said to be largely built around footage from the all-star salute Rogers received in Nashville on Oct. 25, 2017, just a couple of months before his final concert appearances.
Among the guests who joined him for that sentimental send-off at the Bridgestone Arena were Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie, Don Henley. Also joining him were Kris Kristofferson Alison Krauss, Chris Stapleton, Little Big Town, Reba McEntire, the Flaming Lips and the Judds.
Rogers’ signature song The Gambler was added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2018. It was the most recent of a lifetime of honours bestowed on the singer; which included induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, three Grammys, and six CMA Awards.
Rogers was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Country Music Association the same year.
Married five times, Rogers is survived by his last wife Wanda and five children. The Gambler has left the table, but his music and the emotion they carried will live forever.
