“I think the best that any songwriter could hope for is to have Kenny Rogers sing one of your songs,” said Mr.
Rogers as a TV actor and host of several TV specials.
Rogers as professional gambler Brady Hawkes, and led to a lengthy side career for Mr.
“The Gambler,” the Grammy-winning story song penned by Don Schlitz, came out in 1978 and became his signature song with a signature refrain: “You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ’em.” The song spawned a hit TV movie of the same name and several more sequels featuring Mr. Rogers added hit after hit for more than a decade. Rogers started his solo career and found a big hit with the sad country ballad “Lucille,” in 1977, which crossed over to the pop charts and earned Mr. Rogers and First Edition mixed country-rock and folk on songs like “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town,” a story of a Vietnam veteran begging his girlfriend to stay.Īfter the group broke up in 1974, Mr. The band reformed as First Edition and scored a pop hit with the psychedelic song, “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).” Mr.
As a 20-year-old, he had a gold single called “That Crazy Feeling,” under the name Kenneth Rogers, but when that early success stalled, he joined a jazz group, the Bobby Doyle Trio, as a standup bass player.īut his breakthrough came when he was asked to join the New Christy Minstrels, a folk group, in 1966. Rogers was raised in public housing in Houston Heights with seven siblings. He sold more than 47 million records in the United States alone, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.Ī true rags-to-riches story, Mr. He received 10 awards from the Academy of Country Music. Rogers was a five-time CMA Award winner, as well as the recipient of the CMA's Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013, the same year he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. “He was a global superstar who helped introduce country music to audiences all around the world." “Kenny was one of those artists who transcended beyond one format and geographic borders,” says Sarah Trahern, chief executive officer of the Country Music Association. 6, and the larger plan to overturn the election “I loved Kenny with all my heart and my heart is broken and a big ole chunk of it is gone with him today," Ms. His “Islands in the Stream” duet partner Dolly Parton posted a video on Twitter on Saturday morning, choking up as she held a picture of the two of them together. And I think people thought it was my desire to change country music. So I found something that I could do that didn’t invite comparison to them. “And I chose that way because I could never be better than Johnny Cash or Willie or Waylon at what they did. Rogers told The Associated Press in 2015. “You either do what everyone else is doing and you do it better, or you do what no one else is doing and you don’t invite comparison,” Mr.
Despite his crossover success, he always preferred to be thought of as a country singer. Rogers thrived for some 60 years before retiring from touring in 2017 at age 79. The Houston-born performer with the husky voice and silver beard sold tens of millions of records, won three Grammys and was the star of TV movies based on “The Gambler” and other songs, making him a superstar in the ‘70s and ’80s. Rogers, 81, died at home in Sandy Springs, Georgia, representative Keith Hagan told The Associated Press. Kenny Rogers, the smooth, Grammy-winning balladeer who spanned jazz, folk, country, and pop with such hits as “Lucille,” “Lady,” and “Islands in the Stream” and embraced his persona as “The Gambler” on records and on TV, died Friday night.