Sunday 14 October 2012

Kenny Rogers: the gambler from the Fourth Ward

In writing his new autobiography "Luck or Something Like It," Kenny Rogers eventually gets to the pop/country hits that made him a superstar in the 1970s, obligatory tunes like "The Gambler" and "Lucille." [...] years before he struck that iconoclastic visage - which appeared on T-shirts in a tortuous and funny episode of "Breaking Bad" as well as a website dedicated to bearded men who look like him - Rogers grew up poor in the Houston housing projects of San Felipe Courts. Rogers goes back to his youth at Wharton Elementary School and discusses the good and bad of his family, from a disconnected alcoholic father to the musically inclined kin who played some role in his future career. Did anybody in your family think of music as a future for you? Safe to say she eventually realized it worked out for you? Parents think it's a cop-out to keep from working. Even in high school in Houston (at Jefferson Davis High School), I joined Bobby Doyle's group, a jazz group. After high school, I was making $800 a week as a 20-year-old doing what I loved. Yeah, but he was instrumental in the early part of my career. When I started, I got this record deal with Q Records, and Leland got me that deal. [...] his wife walked him out and sat him down and sat on a stool next to him. Most people drink for a reason. If memory serves, a few people cut Don Schlitz's "The Gambler" before you. [...] I also like the story songs with some sort of social statement. There was another movie, "Couples Camp" or something like that [note: "Couples Retreat"]. [...] one of guys is wearing a Kenny Rogers shirt. Some singers seem to get tired of their hits. [...] it seems like you've always regarded them with reverence.

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