Kenny Rogers

Speaker 0: In a career that spanned fifty years, the legendary Kenny Rogers captured the hearts of generations with songs we'll never forget. Compelling stories, intriguing podcast. This is the story. The world lost a music legend on 03/20/2020 when three time Grammy award winning Kenny Rogers died after giving us more than fifty years of music. The gambler broke even.

That's one of the lyrics from one of Kenny Rogers' most famous songs, nineteen seventy eight's The Gambler. The song tells the story of a gambling man who shares his knowledge about life, knowing when to hold them and when to fold them. Kenny Rogers retired from performing just a few years ago, canceling parts of his 2017 tour when health problems continued to plague him. He knew when to leave the spotlight after a career any musician would have loved to have had. Kenny released 39 albums over several decades and 80 singles.

25 of his songs would go all the way to number one. And his music wasn't just popular on country radio. His songs were popular among a wide variety of music fans. He won three Grammys, and in 2013, his greatest achievement was realized when he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Kenny Rogers was born in 1938 in Houston, Texas.

Way back then, America was still in the Great Depression, and the world was on the brink of another world war. Kenny was born into poverty, and his talent would take him places his family could never have imagined way back in 1938. His first single was released in 1958, and Kenny was only 20 at the time. Now you've probably never heard of the song. It was called That Crazy Feeling.

That first single and another song released the same year failed to gain much popularity. Kenny's next solo release wouldn't be released until 1966. It also didn't capture the attention of music fans. But in 1967, Kenny became the lead singer for the first edition, a pop band who performed a variety of music styles. Their first big hit was just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.

Their follow-up was but you know I love you, which peaked at number 19 on the Billboard hot 100. Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town would make it all the way to number six, followed by one of their biggest hits, Something's Burning. Kenny would have to wait until 1975 to have his first minor hit record as a solo artist. After leaving the first edition, he released his debut album for United Artist Records, and one of the singles from the album, the song Love Lifted Me, would go to number 19 on the country chart. It was his first top 20 hit as a solo artist.

Two years later, his follow-up album, the self titled Kenny Rogers, was released, and this is the year that everything began to change. The album would go platinum, driven by the success of the single Lucille, a number one country hit and a number five pop hit throughout America. The song was heard around the world and became one of Kenny's two number one songs he would score in Great Britain. In 1978, Kenny would release his third solo album, Daytime Friends, which would yield two hits. The title track, about two friends who are married to other people who cheat on them at night, with its lyrics daytime friends and nighttime lovers, hoping no one else discovers where they go, what they do in their secret hideaway.

The song became Kenny's second number one chart topper. The other hit song from the album was one that sounded very different, Sweet Music Man. It would fail to reach number one on the country chart as Kenny's prior two singles did, but it did crack the top 10, reaching number nine. The song was a bigger hit on American adult contemporary stations, where it did hit the top of the charts. Another singer liked the song so much, she included it on her album later that year.

Her name was Dolly Parton. Little did she know, but she and Kenny Rogers would one day be destined to create one of the greatest duets in music history. The song Sweet Music Man was written by Kenny Rogers himself, and its lyrics are autobiographical. The chorus goes, Nobody sings a love song quite like you. So sing me a song, sweet music man.

Through the years, other artists covered the song, including Dolly and Reba McEntire. Kenny picked up the tempo on his next release, the title track for his album Love or Something Like It. It was going all the way to number one, a familiar spot by now for Kenny, who was recording a string of hits, and America loved what they heard. In the mid seventies, Don Schlitz was a 20 aspiring Nashville Songwriter. Today, he's a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame as well as the Country Music Hall of Fame.

But way back in the second half of the nineteen seventies, he hadn't written a hit song for anyone, but he was poised to have his first success as a songwriter and make a milestone contribution to the career of Kenny Rogers by pinning one of Kenny's signature songs, The Gambler. In 2018, the Library of Congress would select The Gambler for preservation in the National Recording Registry as being culturally, historically, or artistically significant. Over Kenny's long career, duets were a big part of his appeal, and he worked with music legends like Dolly Parton, Dottie West, Kim Carnes, and Sheena Easton. His first notable duet partnership came the year after his breakout hit Lucille when he teamed up with Dottie West. Dottie was a familiar voice on country radio in the nineteen sixties and seventies.

She won a Grammy Award in 1965 for best female vocal performance for the song Here Comes My Baby Back Again. But through the early seventies, her career had waned. The decision to record a series of duets with Kenny Rogers over three albums would put Dottie back at the top of the charts, and some of these songs would be among her biggest hits. But how they came to work together is an interesting story. It all started when Dottie West was running late during a recording session.

She ran over into the time that was booked for Kenny in the studio. Rather than leave and come back later, Kenny ended up staying to watch Dottie and listen to her recording session. And he began giving her advice on the session, and the conversations they had over the next few hours would lead to a lifetime friendship. Three songs stand out among their collaborations. Every Time Two Fools Collide, All I Ever Need Is You, and What Are We Doing in Love.

Every Time Two Fools Collide was their first single together and a number one hit. In 1979, they released another duets album called Classics, which were cover versions of songs recorded by other singers, including Billy Joel and Tammy Wynette. In 1981, Dottie released the song What Are We Doing in Love with Kenny Rogers. That song would go once again to number one. It was the pair's third, but final, chart topping country single together.

It also reached number 14 on the top 40 charts. The pairing of Dottie West and Kenny Rogers revived Dottie's career, but after this, the two went their separate ways professionally. They remained friends and would reunite a few times for live performances before the tragic death of Dottie West in 1991. On 08/30/1991, Donnie West was scheduled to perform at the Grand Ole Opry. But on the way, she had a problem.

Her car stalled. An 81 year old neighbor, George Thaxton, offered to give her a ride. She encouraged him to drive as fast as possible as she was running late and scared she would miss her performance time on the famous Grand Ole Opry stage. Her fear of being late would cost her her life. George Thackett lost control of the car while going 55 miles per hour on an interstate exit, and the speed limit was 25.

The car veered off the ramp, became airborne, and struck the ground with such force, Dottie suffered severe injuries to her liver and spleen. Over the next several days, she required multiple surgeries. The situation looked dire. Before she underwent her last surgery, on 09/04/1991, Kenny Rogers would visit her bedside. She remained unconscious throughout the visit.

In his autobiography, Kenny recalled that he sat by her bedside and talked to her, believing she could hear him. She died later that day on the operating table at age 58. Although Dottie West died at an early age, her music lives on today, and a big part of her legacy is her musical partnership with Kenny Rogers. When we continue, we look back at Kenny's career as it transitioned from the seventies to the eighties, and his biggest success was just around the corner.

Speaker 1: The story will continue right after this. And now back to the story.

Speaker 0: As the seventies transitioned into the nineteen eighties, Kenny Rogers was at the peak of his career. He wanted to do an entire album about a modern day cowboy, and he asked Kim Carnes and her songwriting husband to write it. Kenny had been a bandmate of Kim's back in the nineteen sixties when he was a member of the new Christy Minstrels. The songs that Kim Carnes wrote for the project became the album Gideon, and it was released in 1980. Only one of the songs ended up being released as a single, and it was a blockbuster, Don't Fall in Love with a Dreamer.

It became a number one country hit, and it peaked at number four on the Billboard top 100. It was Kenny's first number one song of the nineteen eighties and his fifth overall. For Kim Carnes, it was her first number one. Kenny Rogers was starting the nineteen eighties on top. Kenny would get another number one song on the country charts in 1980 with the song Love the World Away, which was the second single from the soundtrack to Urban Cowboy, which starred John Travolta and Deborah Winger.

The soundtrack would produce five top 10 hits across multiple music formats. By 1980, Kenny was thinking of putting out his first greatest hits package, and he wanted to include one new song as part of the album. He found himself in Las Vegas while touring that year, and he heard that the Commodores were also in town. So he called up Lionel Richie, the lead singer, and told him he'd like him to write a song to be on the album. But Lionel gave him the brush off.

He said he was just too busy. At a multi artist tribute concert to Lionel Richie in 2012, Kenny recalled on stage how he told Lionel this would be part of a greatest hits package and was expected to sell 5,000,000 copies. Suddenly, Lionel wasn't so busy, and he promised to be there the following night. When Lionel Richie showed up in Kenny's dressing room before Kenny's concert to pitch the song on a little piano in the dressing room, Lionel told Kenny that he had already pitched the idea of this song to the Commodores, and they turned it down. So he started playing a little melody, and he sang lady.

That was the only word he had for the whole song. It would be six months until they met in the studio to record what would be Kenny's biggest hit ever, one that Kenny said became his most identifiable song. Lionel both wrote and produced the song. Kenny had wanted to work with Lionel because he thought the influences of country and r and b would make a great combination. So Lionel was asked to produce the song as well as write it.

Lady became the first record of the nineteen eighties to chart on all four of Billboard magazine's singles charts, Country, the Hot 100, the adult contemporary, and the top soul singles charts. Lady was Kenny's only number one song on the hot 100 in his career, and today, it is still ranked at number 60 on Billboard's top 100 singles of all time. The following year, in 1981, Kenny would release his eleventh studio album, Share Your Love, which would go on to sell 9,000,000 copies. With the success of the single lady, Kenny asked Lionel to produce his entire next album. And without the time to write most of the songs, they agreed to choose songs they both liked.

And one of those, the lead off single, was the song I Don't Need You, which was written by songwriter Rick Christian. On the hot 100 chart, it went to number three and took the top spot on the adult contemporary and country charts. Later in his career, Kenny commented that I Don't Need You was still to this day one of his favorite songs, even though he couldn't ever remember meeting the songwriter, Rick Christian. The two never met. The second single from the album was the most successful single, Share Your Love With Me.

Like so many other Kenny Rogers songs, it was a country chart topper. With Lionel Richie producing, it too had r and b influence and featured background vocals from Gladys Knight and the Pips. Another one of the big songs from the album was a ballad that celebrated dedication and commitment in a relationship through the years. It was a song he performed at the nineteen eighty three Grammy Awards. And years later, on a television special celebrating his fifty years in music, Kenny would sing the song with his longtime friends, Lionel Richie and Dolly Parton.

By this point in his career, Kenny Rogers was dabbling in acting, and he starred in the 1982 film Six Pack, which also starred a young Diane Lane. In the film, Kenny plays Brewster Baker, a race car driver who has parts of his race car stolen by a group of orphaned children. The soundtrack from the movie featured the song Love Will Turn You Around, and critics said the song's acoustic guitar strums returned Kenny to his roots way back when he was with the first edition. America loved the song, and it reached number one on the adult contemporary and the country charts. His final hit of 1982 was called A Love Song, which was written and previously recorded by Lee Greenwood.

In the early nineteen eighties, a Scottish singer who got her big break singing the theme to the James Bond movie, For Your Eyes Only, was Sheena Easton, and she was the next female singer destined to join Kenny Rogers behind the microphone for an amazing collaboration. Kenny was ready to record another duet. And at the time, Larry Maza was chairman of Liberty Records, and he was anxious to help Sheena return to the top of the charts. Liberty was also the label that had released Bob Seger's We've Got Tonight back in 1978. Maza asked Kenny Rogers to consider recording the song with Sheena Easton.

So Kenny called her up on 12/23/1982. The next night, on Christmas Eve, they met in the studio for rehearsals. And before the end of the year, they recorded the final version. Just a few weeks later, in January 1983, the song was released. It became more popular than Bob Seger's original recording.

After hearing the track, Bob commented, I Know My Mom Will Love It, and he appeared at the October 1984 ASCAP Country Music Awards, where the duet was honored. We've Got Tonight was another number one country song for Kenny, and it returned both stars to the top 10 spots on both the AC and the Billboard Hot 100. Kenny and Sheena are believed to have performed the song live in public together just a few times on his 1983 tour and again in 2010 at a Kenny Rogers, the first fifty years tribute concert. After We've Got Tonight, Kenny's next two songs would fail to reach the top of the charts, All My Life and Scarlet Fever. But late in 1983, he was set to release Eyes That See in the Dark.

This would be his first album released on RCA Records and was produced by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. The album gets its name from an Ernest Hemingway book, and the recording session for Eyes That See in the Dark took place in Miami Beach and Los Angeles. At the Los Angeles recording session, they were working on a song Kenny was having a hard time with. In fact, he sang it countless times over a period of four days, and he eventually told Barry Gibb that he didn't even like the song anymore. That song was Islands in the Stream.

The Bee Gees had originally written the song with Marvin Gaye in mind, the legendary r and b singer. But since he was producing Kenny's album, Barry Gibb wanted Kenny to sing it, but Kenny just couldn't get into it. At that moment, Barry Gibb had an epiphany, and he said out loud, we need Dolly Parton. After four days of trying to record the song, Kenny said, why not? His manager, Ken Kragen, said he had just seen her, as she was also in Los Angeles at the time.

They made a phone call, and within an hour, they had Dolly in the studio where lightning was about to strike. When she got the call, Dolly Parton jumped at the chance to work with Kenny Rogers and Barry Gibb. And as Kenny would reflect back years later, something magical happened when she came into the studio. After it was released, Islands in the Stream would race to number one, knocking Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart out of the top spot, and it would go on to sell 2,000,000 physical copies. It would sell another million in the digital age after it became available for download.

The song went on to be covered by other duos, including Barry Gibb himself with Reba McEntire and Shawn Mendes and Miley Cyrus. Kenny and Dolly would go on to tour together and perform the song live countless times. One of the final times was a reunion in 02/2005 on Country Music Television special that celebrated the best country duets of all time. Islands in the Stream was ranked number one. Kenny's next hit was with a pair of successful singers that were prominent on the radio in the nineteen eighties.

They appeared together on the song What About Me, And while it didn't fare well on country radio, it was a number one crossover hit on adult contemporary stations. What's interesting about this song is that it was a three way love song, So Kenny needed two other singers to be on the single with him. And at first, he wanted Lionel Richie and Barbra Streisand, but that didn't work out. Then he considered Olivia Newton John and Jeffrey Osborne, but that wasn't meant to be either. So he turned to his old friend, Kim Carnes, and together with James Ingram, they had the right combination.

This might have been about the time it's considered the peak of the career of Kim Carnes, who had had the smash hit Bette Davis Eyes a few years earlier. While she was on the charts with Kenny and James Ingram on What About Me, her hit with Barbra Streisand, Make No Mistake He's Mine, was also on the charts, and another song, one she released from the soundtrack to the film That's Dancing. So Kim Carnes was on the charts simultaneously as a solo singer, in a duo, and as part of a trio. What About Me would be the last time Kenny and Kim would perform on a song together. Kenny co wrote his next single with songwriter Richard Marx, who would go on to have his own successful singing career.

The song was called Crazy, and it was the last single from the What About Me album. It was to be the eleventh number one country song for Kenny Rogers as a solo artist. Dave Loggins would write Kenny's next hit. Loggins was a successful singer songwriter in his own right, having scored the number one song, Please Come to Boston, in 1974 on the pop charts, and he had also recorded the song, Nobody Loves Me Like You Do with Anne Murray, a duet that was number one on the country charts in 1984. The song that Dave Loggins wrote for Kenny was called Morning Desire, and it was the lead single from his 1985 album, The Heart of the Matter.

And like so many songs before, Kenny took it all the way to number one. And the song features the incredibly haunting guitar playing of American jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan. By this point, his biggest hits were behind him, but Kenny Rogers still had a lot of great music to share with the world.

Speaker 2: The story will continue right after this. And now back to the story.

Speaker 0: Kenny Rogers only released two singles from his album, The Heart of the Matter. The second and final one was to be Tomb of the Unknown Love. It was his thirteenth number one country hit. In early nineteen eighty seven, Kenny recorded a cover of the song twenty years ago. The song had been released a few years earlier by Juice Newton.

The song is sung from the viewpoint of losing a friend two decades before in the Vietnam War. It came close to the top, but peaked at number two. Although Kenny Rogers was not destined to record again with Kim Carnes, he did use one of the songs she had written for his next collaboration. She had written the song, Make No Mistake, He's Mine, and recorded it with Barbra Streisand, which did go to number 10 on the adult contemporary chart. And in 1987, Kenny flipped the song and sang it as a duet with Ronnie Milsap.

Their version was Make No Mistake, She's Mine. The song was on Ronnie Milsap's Heart and Soul album and Kenny's I Prefer the Moonlight album, and they toured together in 1987. It went on to win a Grammy Award as best country collaboration with vocals that year. And it had another important distinction. The song would be the last number one hit during the nineteen eighties for Kenny Rogers.

In fact, from this point on in his career, the big hits were becoming fewer and fewer. He did have a number two record with I Prefer the Moonlight later in 1987, but didn't do as well with the follow ups, like The Factory and When You Put Your Heart in It. Kenny would have another top 10 with The Vowels Go Unbroken in 1989. After that, he wouldn't have another top 10 hit for a decade. Music styles were changing, and country radio was heading towards a more traditional sound with artists like Randy Travis in the second half of the nineteen eighties and Alan Jackson in the nineties.

But before the nineties were done, Kenny would have another duet, this time with Alison Krauss, as well as background vocals in the final verse from Billy Dean, another country star of the nineties. The song, Buy Me a Rose. In addition to being a hauntingly beautiful song, it has another incredibly important distinction in music history. It would be the last number one song of Kenny Rogers' career. From Lucille in 1977 to Buy Me a Rose more than twenty years later, Kenny's songs are the soundtrack of a generation.

But music wasn't Kenny's only passion. He starred in a series of gambler TV movies after his 1978 smash hit, The Gambler, and, of course, in the movie Six Pack. He also developed a love for photography and released two photo books in the nineteen eighties. Kenny also was an entrepreneur, and he teamed up with the former CEO of Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1991 to launch a new chain of restaurants called Kenny Rogers Roasters. At its peak, the chain had more than 400 locations.

The chicken may have been good, but this business would not have the longevity of Kenny's music career, at least not in The United States. In 1998, the chain entered chapter 11 bankruptcy. The chain would survive, but after a series of ownership changes, all of The US locations were closed by 02/2011. Today, it's still in existence, with a 56 locations in the Far East, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and several other Asian countries. Kenny's personal life also had its ups and downs over the years.

He was married five times, and like many people in the spotlight, he wasn't always happy with the attention that being a celebrity brought him. In the early nineties, a tabloid magazine reported that Kenny had set up an 800 number so that women he met on the road could call him for some steamy talk. The scandal was parodied on radio stations and late night talk shows for weeks with humorous references to one of his previous hits, Something's Burning. Kenny's most successful marriage was his last one, to Wanda Miller, although they didn't meet in the most romantic of circumstances. In fact, Kenny Rogers was on a date with another woman.

They were having dinner in an Italian restaurant where Wanda Miller was the hostess. Kenny later recalled the food was good, but the date wasn't going anywhere. There were just no sparks. And he kept noticing Miller as she walked through the restaurant, seating other guests. Now Kenny had the decency to not make any moves on the hostess while he was on the date with another woman, but something caught his eye.

After he left the restaurant with the other woman and they parted ways, Kenny called one of his friends, who was still at the Italian restaurant, and he asked him to inquire who the hostess was and to get her number. But his friend, who had set him up on the unsuccessful date, told him to find out himself, and he suggested he call the restaurant manager, which, of course, he did. And Kenny and Wanda Miller started dating. However, at the time, Kenny Rogers was 54 years old, nearly three decades older than Wanda Miller. And when her parents found out, they were not thrilled at the December romance, even if it was with a music legend who could offer their daughter a lifetime of financial security.

Kenny admitted he knew why it was awkward for Wanda's parents. He was only two years older than they were. Kenny Rogers and Wanda Miller were married in 1997. In his autobiography, he wrote, as wrong as it may have looked, I also knew this. My relationship with Wanda felt right to me.

Turns out, he was right. Wanda Miller remained with him until the end and was at his bedside when he died in March of twenty twenty. It may have taken several attempts, but Kenny Rogers' successful marriage to Wanda Miller proves even celebrities can have what they so often sing about and so rarely find. The death of Kenny Rogers was mourned by people all over the world. The day after his death, Dolly Parton said she was heartbroken in an emotional Instagram video.

In it, she said that she couldn't believe it when she turned on the TV and found out that her friend and singing partner, Kenny Rogers, had passed away. She went on to say, I know that we all know Kenny's in a better place than we are today, and I'm pretty sure he's gonna be talking to God sometime today if he's not already. And he's gonna be asking him to spread some light on a bunch of this darkness going on down here. Country singer Brad Paisley was also visibly upset in a video that he posted on social media, which featured him covering Kenny's song Sweet Music Man. Don Henley also reacted to the death of Kenny Rogers, saying that Kenny should get credit for the formation of the legendary band The Eagles, citing that he was in a band called Shiloh in the late sixties, and that Kenny was instrumental in getting them a record deal, which took Henley to LA where he would meet his future bandmates in the Eagles.

And reflecting on forty years of friendship, Lionel Richie said Kenny Rogers was a mentor and a friend who was always a joy to be around. He also credits him with helping launch his solo career after leaving the Commodores. The mark that Kenny Rogers left on the music of the twentieth century is unmistakable, and it may only become clearer in the years to come how incredible his contribution was to the culture of the late twentieth century. You're listening

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