Kenny Rogers

Did You Know?

• Rogers kept a pet goat named Smitty at his former estate in Colbert, Georgia, which he acquired from a friend in 2008.
• He was married five times and had five children.
• Rogers's six-decade career wound down by 2017, as he encountered health problems that included a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and bladder cancer.

Early life

Kenneth Donald Ray Rogers came into the world on August 21, 1938, at St. Joseph’s Infirmary in Houston, Texas, as the fourth of eight children. His mother, Lucille Lois Rogers, worked as a nurse’s assistant, and his father, Edward Floyd Rogers, was a carpenter. The family resided in the San Felipe Courts public housing project. Rogers was believed to have Irish and Native American roots.

He went to Wharton Elementary School, then George Washington Junior High, and finished at Jefferson Davis High School (now Northside High School) in 1956. At age eleven, in 1949, he took first place in a talent show at the Texan Theatre. To earn money, he worked as a busboy at the Rice Hotel and swept floors at a hat store for $9 each week. He later enrolled at the University of Houston.

During a 1986 appearance on The Phil Donahue Show, Rogers shared that he was the first known member of his family to earn a high school diploma. He described his family as broke and living in federal housing, noting his father’s highest weekly pay was $75. Though he always had food, he admitted they were sometimes nutritionally deprived, often surviving on peanut butter sandwiches.

Career

Rogers began his recording career in the late 1950s with the Houston-based group the Scholars, who first released 'The Poor Little Doggie'. After some solo releases, including 1958's 'That Crazy Feeling', he joined a group with jazz singer Bobby Doyle. In 1966, he became a member of the folk ensemble the New Christy Minstrels, playing double bass and bass guitar, as well as singing. In 1967, several members of the New Christy Minstrels and he left to found the group the First Edition, with whom he scored his first major hit, 'Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)', a psychedelic rock song that peaked at number five on the Billboard charts.

As Rogers took an increased leadership role in the First Edition following the success of 1969's 'Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town', the band gradually changed styles to a more country feel. The band broke up in 1975–76, and Rogers embarked on a long and successful solo career, which included several successful collaborations, including duets with singers Dottie West, Dolly Parton, and Sheena Easton, and a songwriting partnership with Lionel Richie.

His signature song, 1978's 'The Gambler', was a crossover hit that won him a Grammy Award in 1980, and was selected in 2018 for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. He charted more than 60 top-40 hit singles, including two number ones—'Lady' and 'Islands in the Stream'. His music has been featured in top-selling movie soundtracks, such as Convoy, Urban Cowboy, and The Big Lebowski.

Acting and other ventures

Rogers found success on screen as well. His 1982 film Six Pack, where he portrayed a race-car driver, earned over $20 million at the U.S. box office. TV movies like The Gambler series, Christmas in America, and Coward of the County—all based on his hit songs—topped the ratings. He also hosted and narrated the A&E series The Real West.

Photography was once an obsession for him, later becoming a passion; he published the photo books Kenny Rogers' America (1986) and Your Friends and Mine (1987). In business, he teamed up with former KFC CEO John Y. Brown Jr. in 1991 to launch the Kenny Rogers Roasters restaurant chain, which appeared on a Seinfeld episode called "The Chicken Roaster." He also lent his name to the Gambler Chassis Co., a sprint-car manufacturer in Hendersonville, Tennessee, named after his song "The Gambler."

During the 1980s and 1990s, Gambler cars were among the fastest and most popular in the sport. In October 2012, he released the memoir Luck or Something Like It, covering his musical career's highs and lows. In 2014, he appeared in a GEICO commercial, singing part of "The Gambler" a cappella while dealing cards.

Record labels

Rogers signed to numerous record labels over his career. These included Cue (1957, with the band the Scholars and also as a solo singer), Carlton (1958, solo deal), KenLee (one single, label owned by Rogers and his brother Lelan), Columbia (1960s, with jazz combo, the Bobby Doyle Three), Reprise (1967, with the First Edition), Jolly Rogers (1973, with the First Edition, label owned by Rogers), United Artists (1975, solo deal), Liberty (1980), RCA Records (1983, solo deal), Reprise (1989, solo deal), Giant (1993, one solo album), Atlantic (1994, one solo album), onQ Music (1996, one solo album), Magnatone (1996, solo deal), Dreamcatcher (1998, solo deal), and Capitol Nashville (2004, solo deal).