“You have to know when to hold ‘em, Know when to fold ‘em

Know when to walk away, know when to run”

That voice! Gravelly, deep, drawing you in to the story, painting compelling word pictures that hooked you …Kenny Rogers’ songs are magical! Rogers essentially sang two types of songs – ballads and narratives and he just knocked so many of them right out of the park! Kenny’s voice made the stories of all the characters he sang about settle into our hearts. We fell in love with them all – the world-weary Gambler on the train, Lucille and her abandoned, heartbroken husband, cheating Ruby and her invalid husband or the pent-up rage of Tommy, the Coward of the County …. We felt the pain of the characters, rooted for them and sang along with Kenny. Of course, Kenny was on the radio a lot – mostly on Forces Request I seem to remember. I’m sure everyone owned the cassette of Kenny Roger’s Greatest Hits – I know I did for a very long time. His music has accompanied me on many road trips and been the background for lazy evenings with friends.  

Kenny was a hit-machine, who became a star only after he started his solo career at the age of 37! 100 Million records sold, 21 Country Music #1s,Two Grammys, uncountable American Music Awards & Country Music Awards, Hall of Fame – he won everything????. His music easily crossed over to Pop and found its way to listeners like us in Dilli. Interestingly, Kenny pretty much never wrote his own songs – he took other people’s material and turned it to gold. His two #1 hits were “Lady”, written by Lionel Richie and “Islands In the Stream”, written by the Bee Gees, and all his other hits from The Gambler to Ruby were other people’s songs. He was also a terrific duet singer scoring hits with Dolly Parton, Kim Carnes, Sheena Easten.

Kenny was a man of many talents – none of us would have ever have guessed he was a Pro-level Tennis player.? ? He actually had an ATP ranking and during his singing career, used to have a couple of pros fly with him everywhere on tour. He was also a pretty good actor – he parlayed The Gambler into a series of five films with him starring the lead role of The Gambler.

And of course, like all of us, he got into trouble with his mom quite often. Apparently he got a real yelling from his mom about his breakthrough hit ‘Lucille’ – you’ll remember it was about a low-down no-good quitter called Lucille. Kenny apparently forgot that his mom’s name was also Lucille! ??

Kenny passed away earlier this year. Guess he knew when it was time to walk away. RIP