Kenny Rogers Biography

Kenny Rogers was a silver-haired star of both country and pop music from the 1970s into the 21st century, with hits including “The Gambler,” “Islands In the Stream,” and “Lady.”

Born to a working-class Texas family, Kenny Rogers grew up in public housing in Houston and began singing in earnest as a teenager; his 1958 doo-wop recording “That Crazy Feeling” was his first hit. Always willing to cross genres, he played in a jazz trio and then joined the folk supergroup The New Christy Minstrels in 1966, both singing and playing bass. He then co-founded the eclectic rock trio the First Edition in 1967. From 1969 on they were Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, reflecting his rising star as a singer and front man. The group split up in 1975, and Rogers went solo.

By then almost 40, Rogers rebranded himself as a handsome, silver-haired, sweet-talking country gentleman. His 1977 single “Lucille” (“You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille / With four hungry children and a crop in the field”) went to #1 on both pop and country charts and made him a star.

He followed it with the 1979 album The Gambler, which sold 35 million copies. The title single (written by Don Schlitz) was the story-song of a drifter who receives a life lesson on a train from a dying gambler: “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.” “The Gambler” became Rogers’s signature song: he won a Grammy Award for best male country vocal, and then starred in a series of five The Gambler TV movies between 1980 and 1994.

Rogers remained a star for the next two decades, with other hits like “Lady” (1980, written by Lionel Richie), “Through the Years” (1981), and “Islands in the Stream” (a 1983 duet with Dolly Parton). In all, Rolling Stone noted, Rogers was “featured on a staggering 30 Number One singles across the U.S. pop, country, and adult contemporary charts from 1977 to 1999.” He had a last #1 country single in 2000 with “Buy Me a Rose.”

Kenny Rogers became the public face of bad plastic surgery in 2006, when too-aggressive eye surgery changed his appearance and gave him a semi-surprised look. He joked about the surgery in later years while touring steadily on the summer-stage-and-casino circuit, including a hit retro appearance at the Glastonbury Music Festival in 2013. He also was the namesake of the Kenny Rogers Roasters restaurants, which he opened in 1991 with former Kentucky governor John Y. Brown, Jr.

Kenny Rogers announced his impending retirement from performing in 2015 and died in 2020. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013.