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Kenny Rogers' long country road

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 3, 2006

	[Times photo: Getty Images]
	Kenny Rogers, performing on Good Morning America last month, has just released his first studio album in three years, Water & Bridges, on Capitol Records Nashville. "I love the fact that they have confidence in me and have the pocketbook to make it work," said Rogers, 67.

NASHVILLE - After leaving his rock group the First Edition in 1974, Kenny Rogers wasn't sure what to do next.

The answer came at a country music festival in Nashville. The announcer introduced an obscure singer who had had a hit song in 1945, and the crowd went crazy for him.

"If they remember someone from 1945, I want to be with this group of people," Rogers remembered thinking. "That's exactly why I got into it. I felt there was a longevity there that you don't find in pop music and you don't find in rock 'n' roll."

Today, at 67, Rogers is testing his longevity with a new album, Water & Bridges, on Capitol Records Nashville. It's his first studio album in three years and comes 25 years after he became a country and pop superstar with hits including Lucille, The Gambler, Lady, We've Got Tonight and Islands in the Stream. From 1977 to 1987, Rogers had 20 No. 1 songs on the country charts.

Water & Bridges debuted last week at No. 14 on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart and at No. 5 on its top country albums chart.

Capitol, which owns much of Rogers' catalog, signed him to a deal last year, an unusual move in Nashville, where the major labels focus more on younger talent and less on veterans.

"Capitol Records has just laid this wonderful gift of opportunity in my lap," Rogers told a group of country-radio broadcasters recently in an appearance clearly meant to reintroduce him to contemporary radio. "They said, "We think we have a way of making you relevant in the business again.' "

The Houston native has had a long, varied career. It started in the 1950s in a doo-wop act called the Scholars. Later he spent a decade playing bass in a jazz trio.

In 1966 he joined the popular folk-music act the New Christy Minstrels. He left after a year to form the First Edition, whose hits ranged from the psychedelic Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) to the country-flavored Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town.

Rogers broke through as a country star in 1977 with Lucille, a sad song about a woman who abandons her husband "with four hungry children and a crop in the field." By 1980, he had become so successful that he expanded into acting, including a series of made-for-TV movies inspired by The Gambler.

More recently he opened a chain of chicken restaurants, Kenny Rogers Roasters - famously lampooned on an episode of Seinfeld - published books of his photography and started an interior-design business in the Atlanta area, where he lives with his wife, Wanda, and their 20-month-old identical twin sons.

Water & Bridges was produced by Dan Huff, who has worked with crossover acts including Faith Hill, Keith Urban and Rascal Flatts. He tried to give Rogers' country-pop a fresher adult-contemporary sound.

Written by Nashville songwriters, the 11 songs reflect on childhood, love, loss and regret. Social responsibility is a recurring theme, with Rogers bemoaning the state of things in Someone Is Me, singing "Somebody should do something about it. Maybe that someone is me."

The first single, I Can't Unlove You, was at No. 34 and rising on the Billboard country singles chart.

So now the singer, whose celebrity once teetered on overexposure and inspired a Web site called Men Who Look Like Kenny Rogers, may be poised for a comeback.

He's helping his campaign with appearances on both of TV's reality-show singing contests. He performed on Nashville Star last week, and this week, with the American Idol final nine doing country songs on Tuesday's show, he is scheduled to sing on Wednesday's live Idol voting-results show.

For all his success, Rogers has never received the Country Music Association's top honor, Entertainer of the Year, despite being nominated for it five times. He's not in the Country Music Hall of Fame like peers Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton. He said he had never even been invited to perform at the Grand Ole Opry until last year.

"There's no question that I was viewed as an outsider. I never lived in Nashville, and I was more pop than a lot of people," he said. "But when you choose the fence, you get what goes with it. I was too country to be pop and too pop to be country. I'm smart enough to know I brought a lot of that on myself."

[Last modified April 3, 2006, 00:42:17]