Kenny Rogers, the American icon of country music, passed away at the age of 81 on Friday night at Sandy Springs, Georgia.
On September 25, 2015, Rogers posted on his YouTube channel his retirement farewell video. He announced, “I am gonna retire, and I am starting whatever one called a farewell tour. I had an incredible career more than I’ve ever dreamed, and thanks to you guys who supported me through these years.”
“Not many people get to see the end of the rainbow, and I think I have. I had the beauty of this career and the beauty of getting to know you guys daily out on the road and watching kids grow up with me during my Christmas tour every year. And as hard as it is to leave, I will tell you this, younger and earlier in my career, in my book I wrote there’s a fine line between being selfish and being driven. I think I crossed that line a lot when I was younger, and I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with my older boy, and I regret it now.”
“And I decided that my goal now is to stay home and helped Wanda raised Justin and Jordan and be as much as an influence on them as my father and mother were on me. Because that what parents are for. And I want you to hear it from me. I love all of you. I loved the way you treated me. You’ve always been respectful, and I will miss you dearly, but I must be with my boys. Goodbye.”
He made his last world tour – The Gamblers Last Deal Tour – from 2016 until it was cut short in April 2018 due to his declining health.
In May 2019, a tabloid report came out claiming that the country singer-songwriter has bladder cancer and was dying. Kenny Rogers’ representative releases a statement to clarify the issue, saying that Rogers was admitted at a local hospital in Georgia because of dehydration, and he planned to stick around for years to come.
Born on August 21, 1938, Kenneth Donald Rogers grew up in a poor community in Houston, Texas. He was the fourth of the eight children. His dad worked as a carpenter, and his mom as a nurse.
He published a memoir in 2012, Luck Or Something Like It. In the book, he mentioned growing up with an alcoholic father. At that time, after World War II, a lot of people were unemployed and ended up drinking. Kenny surmised about his father, “He couldn’t really support his family, and I think it just broke him down.”
Kenny Rogers mentioned that he never drank in his life. Numerous cigarettes and liquor endorsements offer came to him, but he never agreed to any of it.
In one of his last interviews in 2019, he recalled the unforgettable moment in his career was when his band First Edition, guested in Ed Sullivan show.
He explained, “In Houston, the biggest TV was a 9-inch television, and I used to go across the street from our house and watched a 9-inch TV. We would watch Ed Sullivan and everybody there watching it said, wow those are the big stars. So, when we did that, while I was on the air thinking, wow this is pretty cool I must have done something.”
Rogers’ career started rolling when he joined the New Christy Minstrels in 1966 until he found his way going solo. His name Kenneth Rogers then became Kenny Rogers.
His first major hit Lucille won him a Grammy for best male country vocal performance in 1977. He won another Grammy in 1979 with his single The Gambler. The song’s vivid story inspired producers to turn it into a television-movie followed by several sequels, starring Kenny Rogers himself.
Kenny Rogers started Dreamcatcher Entertainment in 1988, releasing his subsequent albums under his own record label. Out of his 80 singles, more than 20 of his singles hit top 1 in the country music charts. The Gambler and Coward of the Country lasted the longest at three weeks.
In 2013, he received two awards: the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Country Music Association and Country Music Hall of Fame.
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His long-time friend and singing partner of the hit songs Islands in the Stream and You Can’t Make Old Friends, expresses her sadness online. Dolly Parton says, “I know that Kenny is in a better place than we are today. I love Kenny with all my heart.”
Rogers also collaborated with other artists like Sheena Easton with We’ve Got Tonight and Lady with Lionel Richie. He sang with Anne Murray, the heartbreaking love song If I Ever Fall In Love Again. In 1980, he did a duet with Kim Carnes of Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer. His duet with Ronnie Milsap, Make No Mistake, She’s Mine topped the country music chart in 1987. The duet also won them a Grammy for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals in 1988.
Kenny Rogers’ other well-known songs are: Through the Years, You Decorated My Life, Coward of the Country, Ruby, You and I, The Wind That Got Away, Close friend, All My Life, She Believes in Me, and Crazy.
He founded Kenny Rogers’ Roasters in 1991 with former KFC CEO and State of Kentucky governor John Brown Jr. Kenny gave up his stake in the business in 1998 after filing for Chapter11 bankruptcy. Nathan Famous Inc. took over the restaurant chain, and they come to a royalty agreement with Rogers in keeping his name label. By 2008, the Berjaya group of Malaysia bought the Kenny Rogers’ Roasters chain of restaurants and brought it throughout Asia.
Rogers’ family plans to celebrate his life at a later date in consideration of the covid-19 pandemic.
