Kenny Rogers: Cards on the Table

Las Vegas Spring 2014, and more than 50 years since he started out,

country music legend Kenny Rogers is still on the road.

# I wake up with this need again

# But feel the love of the woman beside me... #

Kenny Rogers' winning streak has netted an astonishing 120 million

album sales worldwide and enough awards to fill the Grand Ol' Opry.

# ..And listen to the rain fall on the roof... #

Now 76, playing live is still where this American icon thrives.

# Oh, I listen to her breathe and it makes me want to

# Wake her up and tell her that I'm on fire... #

Rogers' ear for a great song landed hits that broke down musical

barriers and made him a global superstar.

He's a full-on giver on stage,

not to mention probably one of the greatest storytellers.

There was no-one bigger in the music world in the 1980s.

He was huge. I mean, he was a worldwide bona fide star.

Today Kenny's country music royalty,

but an early brush with fame as an unlikely poster-boy

for the psychedelic generation was a long way from Nashville.

MUSIC PLAYS: Just Dropped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In by The First Edition

I did acid one time. I learned from that this is as far as I want to go.

Greater highs lay ahead,

but the journey to the top almost ended before it began.

He was a bit rudderless. He really didn't know what he was going to do.

This course is yours for only 6.95 with the special TV offer.

It was a gamble on a song that no-one else rated

that eventually brought the 38-year-old Kenny Superstardom.

# You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille. #

The great thing about Kenny is he'll take a chance.

I mean, he's had a career taking chances.

I'm a gambler.

MUSIC PLAYS: Lucille by Kenny Rogers

By continuing to ride his luck,

he's re-written the country music rule book.

# Islands in the stream

# That is what we are... #

He's an amazing talent and a genius.

You can't get any better than number one on the country charts

and on the pop charts.

# ..Sail away with me to another world... #

Like the subject of a great country song,

this is the story of a poor boy from Texas whose musical gambles

took him to riches beyond his wildest dreams,

and whose unique voice

has given us some of the most enduring sounds in pop history.

CHEERING

Ladies and gentlemen,

Kenny Rogers!

My mom said it very well one day.

She said, "That boy never worked a day in his life.

"All he ever did was sing."

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Kenneth Ray Rogers was born in Houston Texas in 1939,

the fourth of eight children

born to hospital worker Lucille Lois and carpenter Edward Rogers,

growing up in the poor San Felipe neighbourhood of the city.

I was raised in the projects in Houston

and, at the time, there were a lot of people in there,

and it was really a great environment,

because I had a hundred friends all within two blocks,

and none of us had any money, but we didn't know the difference.

You don't realise you don't have money until you see someone who does.

Kenny had grown up in abject poverty.

You know, eight kids in one room at a time, a father who...

I think Kenny told me

the most he ever made in any one week was 65.

Living through depression-era America

took its toll on Kenneth's father.

He was an alcoholic and basically a very unhappy man,

but music made him happy.

When I was a young boy, we'd get into the back of the pick-up truck

and we'd stand with our heads

above the cab and the wind blowing in our hair,

and we'd drive up to East Texas,

where my grandfather and grandmother lived,

and my dad played fiddle,

and all of his brothers and sisters played instruments,

and they played gospel music

and all the kids would sit in the yard and listen.

It just was a great feeling, you know,

that moment of being there with your dad when he's doing something

and seeing how much he loved it, and I loved that.

Despite the family's lack of money,

Kenny's childhood was rich in other ways.

In the late '40s and early '50s,

he would have been surrounded by a complete banquet

of American music.

Houston was a huge blues town. Houston was a Hispanic town.

Houston was a country town.

Houston was a huge rock 'n' roll town.

And that whole cauldron

of American music was seething all around him.

# Look out, baby I want to be your man

# You got the kind of love that I understand

# All right. #

When I was about 12 or 13 years old,

I went to see Ray Charles with my sister, Barbara.

And I remember standing there and thinking

"I mean, how cool is this? People laugh at everything he says.

"They clap for everything he sings, and he's getting paid for it!"

So Ray Charles was my inspiration to get into this business.

Motivated by the likes of Charles, Kenny's adolescence was soon

revolving around music - singing in church choirs

and the school glee club.

Next step was finding an instrument to play.

There was a store downtown in Houston called H&H music

and you could go in and you could

pick a guitar off the shelf and see if you liked it,

and I would sit in there and every day at lunch

guys who were much better players -

"Hey, let me show you this chord."

And that's how I learned to play.

Then when I got in high school,

we would put a little group together called The Scholars.

The whole idea was to go and play at all the high school proms,

because someone told us

that all the guys who sang in the groups got all of the girls.

Wasn't necessarily true,

but it was a good starting point.

And we did some pretty cool stuff, and we cut some records.

-# Beloved

-Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh

-# My heart cries for you

-Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh.

-#

The Scholars was where I first heard singing harmony,

and I loved harmony.

I never wanted to sing by myself.

I never wanted to be a solo singer.

I always wanted to sing harmony,

because there's something that really ties you together.

Kenny is the harmony singer's harmony singer.

If you're the lead vocal, he's going to shadow you like a dog.

He is going to match you note for note,

and he's going to hit every harmony note perfectly.

# I never knew a kiss could thrill me so

# She woke me up and baby now I know. #

Kenny's time in the teenage band lasted little over a year,

but he knew music was his future.

# It's not just the way you say hello

# Whenever we should meet... #

In 1958, Kenny scored a minor hit

with a song called "That Crazy Feeling".

But his first stab at solo success was short-lived.

I was singing songs for commercials, and then I met Bobby Doyle,

and this guy was blind, and he said,

"I'm going to put together a jazz group.

"And I'd like for you to come play bass with me."

I said, "Well, Bobby, I don't even play bass."

And he said, "I'll teach you how to play bass."

# And if I want to sing throw my heart in the ring

# It's a most unusual day

# There are people meeting people

# There is music everywhere

# There are people greeting people

# And a feeling's ringing in the air. #

Joining the Bobby Doyle Three in 1959

was a key step in Kenny's musical education.

We did Broadway show songs.

We did jazz, and it was very intricate stuff

and he taught us all of this and we learned discipline through that.

But, most importantly,

it gave me an appreciation for other types of music.

# Manic

# Manic... #

The debut Bobby Doyle Three album was released in 1962.

Although it failed to set the world alight,

the group were in demand on the Houston live circuit.

The Bobby Doyle Trio had tremendous impact on Kenny.

He went on the road with them

and he learned so much about the business at that point in time.

We would rehearse seven or eight hours a day

and then we would work seven or eight hours a night,

so it was a full-time job.

The trio also became a backing band for jazz singer Kirby Stone,

who was instrumental in helping

Kenny make his next musical leap forward.

Kirby called his friend who owned the New Christy Minstrels

and said, "We have a guy that you should hire. He plays bass."

And at the time, I could sing really high parts,

and so I got on the telephone

in a hotel lobby and auditioned for this part and they hired me.

# I know where I'm going

# And I know who's going with me... #

Having passed his telephone audition,

Kenny left Houston to join the LA-based New Christy Minstrels.

It was an interesting group for me, because I went from jazz,

which was a very, very extreme form of music,

to folk music, which was the ultimate in simplicity.

# Green, green It's green they say

# On the far side of the hill... #

The Minstrels featured an

ever-changing line-up of folk singers and musicians

that included future stars Barry McGuire,

Gene Clarke of the Byrds and,

when Kenny joined the band in 1966,

a 20-year-old Kim Carnes.

It was like school on the road.

That's what it was, and I think everybody looked at it that way.

It wasn't a for ever thing.

# This land is your land

# This land is my land... #

I learned the beauty of a story song that had social significance.

They did "Green, Green, This Land Is Your Land",

and it was about songs with meaning other than just words.

# As I went walking that ribbon of highway... #

The Christys was a great learning curve,

but their trad-folk sound was fast becoming out of date and in 1967,

Kenny and three fellow Minstrels

took a gamble and formed their own band.

# Reason

# Got myself a reason

# Reason

# Got myself a reason

# I used to walk the streets... #

Hot off the press,

The First Edition were snapped-up

by Frank Sinatra's producer Jimmy Bowen.

We left the Christys on a Friday,

and went to Reprise Records on Monday,

and started an album a week later.

Kenny grew a beard and swapped his upright bass for an electric.

Bob Dylan's former drummer Mickey Jones completed the line-up.

The band were soon spotted by a man who was to become

instrumental in shaping Kenny's future career.

I was producing a number one television show in America

called the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour

and a lawyer who represented the Smothers kept calling me

and saying, "There is a group appearing at this club.

"You've got to go see them."

-# It's not love at all but just practice for you.

-#

The lead in that group was a girl named Thelma Camacho

and she was this gorgeous young woman that all the guys watching

fell in love with, and she was the focal point along with a kid named

Terry Williams, and Kenny just was the bass player.

But I was knocked out by the group.

And the next thing we knew we put them on the show,

and we started managing them.

With manager Ken Kraken's connections

and their regular appearances on TV,

the First Edition began to make waves.

But the band needed a hit.

Kenny remembered a song that had been offered

to the New Christy Minstrels.

"Just Dropped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In"

had been too way out for them,

but it felt perfect for his groovy new band.

I had no idea what it meant, but I knew it was weird enough

to be successful, and I said, "I really want to do that."

The record company gathered together a dream team to look after

the band in the studio that included producer Mike Post

and highly sought after session musician Glen Campbell.

Glen Campbell played a little lick

and Mike Post was rewinding the tape,

and he said, "Oh, I like it better that way,"

so he played on and played the thing Glen played backwards.

That's why it goes wah-wah-wah-wah.

It was so ahead of its time

and the subject matter was so 60s

that everybody related to it.

# Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah

# What condition my condition was in

# I woke up this morning with the sundown shining in... #

With Kenny on lead vocals,

his wager on the psychedelic song proved well-placed.

It wryly reflected the hippy hedonism of the era

and gave the band their first Top Ten Hit.

It's an illustration of how Kenny would tap into the times,

would tap into the zeitgeist of what

particularly the young people at the time were thinking about.

The song provides a flashback to Kenny's own brief flirtation

with psychedelic substances.

I did acid one-time and the first eight hours was phenomenal.

Then the second eight hours, you know, it was a little iffy

and the third eight hours scared me to death.

I mean, I learned from that, this is as far as I want to go.

"Just Dropped In" found a new generation of fans,

thanks to this Busby Berkley-inspired dream

sequence from the 1998 cult film The Big Lebowski.

# I couldn't unwind

# I saw so much

# I broke my mind

# I just dropped in to see what condition... #

It was a fun song, it got tremendous recognition for the group.

And you still hear it to this day.

The challenge now was how to follow Just Dropped In's success.

They were struggling to complete their third LP -

First Edition 69 -

but Kenny's ear for a great song came to the rescue yet again

with the idea to record one of their live favourites.

Kenneth piped up and he said, "You know,

"we do a song in the show

"that is huge.

"It's a smash.

"Every time we do it...

"It's called Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town."

# You've painted up your lips

# And rolled and curled your tinted hair... #

I went in and told the band what to do and I said,

"Let's do it this way,

"and we're going to sing it. We did it in 20 minutes."

# ..Ruby, are you contemplating going out somewhere... #

A world away from mind-bending psychedelia,

Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town

told the tale of a paralysed Korean War veteran,

agonising over his wife's infidelity.

# ..Oh, Ruby...

# Don't take your love to town... #

It was a bold song to record at a time

when the US involvement in Vietnam was dividing the nation.

Producer Jimmy Bowen had his doubts.

He said, "You'll never get that played on the radio."

I said, "Jimmy, if we do, it's going to be a huge record."

When DJs started playing the track, the label conceded

and released it as a single,

along with an amendment to the band's name.

Ruby went through the roof, and that's what led to

it ultimately becoming Kenny Rogers and the First Edition.

With over a million sales by the end of 1970, the song's success

made international stars of the First Edition

and gave them with their first UK top 10 hit,

while cementing Kenny's position as frontman.

Jimmy said, "Well, we can't get away from that,"

so everything was called Kenny Rogers and the First Edition,

not because I wanted it

but that was the business.

Over the years, Ruby became a signature song for Kenny

that he still does to this day in concert.

# ..Ruby... #

That kind of song never goes out of fashion.

People love soap operas.

They love stories. They love drama.

So it was very shrewdly chosen by Kenny.

I've always loved making a statement with the songs you do,

because they're the ones that resonate the most, you know?

# You lie in gentle sleep beside me... #

Released in 1970, the single Something's Burning

was another statement that almost proved too much for some.

# ..Your warm and rhythmic breathing... #

When the song was released, I must have gone to 30 radio stations

and they said, "Well, we think it's a beautiful record

"but it's a little too sexual for our radio station,"

and I never heard a song called that before.

So I said, "OK." So they said no, they said no, they said no,

and so then I flew to London,

I did the Tom Jones television show,

which aired in the United States and by the time I got back,

all those same stations were playing Something Burning.

# Feel it

# Feel it

# Fire

# Fire

# Something's burning

# Something's burning

# Something's burning

# And I think it's love...

# And I think it's love... #

He had a feel for a hit song.

He had great ears for a hit song.

That is a talent unto itself,

because there's a lot of great artists out there

that come up with a lot of shit songs

because they wouldn't know a hit song if it hit them in the face.

A worldwide success,

the song reached number eight in the UK charts

and earned the band a spot on Top Of The Pops.

Kenny Rogers and the First Edition seemed destined for great things.

# Day after day things kept going our way

# And your song kept getting stronger... #

Here we go.

But Something's Burning marked the peak of their fame

and was the last time one of their singles would chart

so high in their native country.

With record sales in steep decline,

it seemed the First Edition had become yesterday's news.

The band played their last gigs in Reno in the autumn of 1975.

The night that we broke up, it was dead silence

between all of us.

And the next morning,

we all went to the airport

and nobody spoke to anybody.

It was the most heartbreaking thing of my life.

It absolutely killed me.

The First Edition broke up around me.

I never wanted to leave.

They just finally said, "We can't do this any more."

So I said, "Well, OK, what do I do now?"

# Don't look so sad

# I know it's over... #

The break-up mirrored a crisis in Kenny's personal life.

His drive to succeed had already led to the failure of two marriages

and a costly divorce with his third wife was looming.

When his father died that same year,

Kenny found himself in a dark place.

Kenny was somewhat lost.

He was wandering in the wilderness, as it were.

This course is yours for only 6.95 through this special TV offer.

With debts mounting, Kenny was forced to take any work

that was on offer.

Fun strumming.

Home guitar course.

Still hungry to succeed in the music business,

37-year-old Rogers took what seemed like one last roll of the dice.

With the exception of Just Dropped In,

everything we did was really country influenced.

The only reference I had

was that I had had some success in country music.

# Six foot six he stood on the ground

# He weighed 235 pounds

# But I saw that giant of a man

# Brought down to his knees by love... #

Hoping to build on past success,

Kenny headed for the epicentre of country music - Nashville.

# ..Look you in the eye and never back up... #

It was there he met Larry Butler,

producer of some of Johnny Cash's biggest hits

and head of United Artists' Nashville division.

He really believed in me.

I was 37 years old when I signed a country music record deal

and the president of the company said,

"We don't hire people, we don't sign people that old."

He said, "You signed who?" I said, "I signed Kenny Rogers."

And he said, "Why? His career is over.

"He's had a great run but it's over."

I said, "No, I think it's just beginning.

"With what I have in mind for him, this will be a whole new career."

# I'll write myself a simple song

# Get the whole world to sing along

# I'll call it... #

With Larry's strong musical direction,

they set about recording songs for a new album at a frantic pace.

Country artists would go in and do a whole album in two or three days.

I mean, literally. Kenny did it.

It was just crazy.

But Larry had that kind of energy, and so did I.

# ..I'll just sing love lifted me... #

Despite their efforts, Kenny's first solo album sold poorly.

The record company, who'd needed convincing before signing Kenny,

weren't keen on a second album.

Kenny and Larry needed to find that elusive hit.

They were fighting about it. "What are you doing?"

Larry said, "Just let me do this.

He would go find songs and bring them back to me.

One of those songs was written by Hal Bynum.

It was the last session and Kenny said,

"Let's do that little beer-drinking song."

So they did.

# In a bar in Toledo

# Across from the depot

# On a bar stool she took off her ring... #

Kenny sent me the songs that he'd recorded down there

so we all sat down to listen to them and all of a sudden

this song Lucille comes on.

And we start laughing

and we cannot believe this song.

I said, "This is either the biggest hit or the biggest dud

"you've ever seen, but one thing for sure,

"people are going to talk about it," and we went to the record company

and said, "You gotta release Lucille," and they said,

"No, we're releasing..." some other song that never went anywhere,

and Lucille ended up being a third release,

and it was the one that really took off.

# ..You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille

# With four hungry children and a crop in the field... #

It's got all the elements of a country hit.

It touched all the nerves

and it was simple and easy to follow

and he delivered it just right.

You couldn't hold that song back.

The surprising thing about Lucille

is not that it was a country hit,

but that it was a pop hit

and, furthermore, an international hit.

It hit with a typhoon force. It was omnipresent.

# ..After he left us I ordered more whisky

# I thought how she'd made him look small

# From the lights of the bar room... #

Lucille reached number one in 12 countries in 1977,

selling over five million copies worldwide.

It remains one of Kenny's most popular hits.

I still contend that if you start off with great songs,

you've got to screw them up.

And I tried hard not to screw them up.

Everybody in the back, you picked a fine time, really loud now.

# You picked a fine time to leave me... #

One last time, here we go.

# ..You picked a fine time... #

But there was one person who wasn't too happy about the song -

Kenny's Mum.

Her name was Lucille, and she said,

"I can't believe you would write a song about me and the family."

First of all, I didn't write the song,

and secondly, it's not about you. And she was kind of hurt by that

but I said, "Think about it. First of all, you have eight kids.

"Why would I say four?"

And so she got to where she was OK with it

but she did not like it at first.

# ..I've had some bad times

# Lived through some sad times

# This time your hurting won't heal... #

18 months after nearly cashing in his chips,

Lucille gave Kenny credibility with Nashville's country music fraternity

and a strong musical direction to follow.

It grounded me.

Instead of flying all over the handle and doing all types of music,

it kind of grounded me and gave me a base I could count on.

Once we found Lucille,

that just busted everything wide open.

Then everything we touched was gold.

# Doctor, can you find the cure?

# Tell me, are you really sure? #

With the success of Lucille, bookings began to flood in.

We went from playing lounges in small places

to 7,000- to 8,000-seat arenas,

I mean literally, it seemed, overnight.

Add water and, pff, here comes a career, like that.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I think it was a big adjustment for him.

All of a sudden, he's got three security guards

getting him too and from the places,

he's got his own plane to fly around in, you know?

And it was very, very fast.

# Falling in love... #

Kenny's career AND personal life were well and truly on the up.

In October 1977, he married his fourth wife, Marianne.

By 1978, Kenny's growing popularity meant that he was

a magnet for songwriters.

We all wanted a Kenny Rogers record.

But since I'd grown up listening to Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town,

I'd heard the man's ability to tell a story,

and The Gambler, it was a Kenny Rogers song.

It was a story that he could tell.

Kenny and Larry Butler made some changes.

There was a wonderful guitar intro that was not mine.

You hear the first notes and you know what song it's going to be.

# On a warm summer's evening

# On a train bound for nowhere

# I met up with a gambler

# We were both too tired to sleep... #

It's hard to believe now,

but at the time the odds were against The Gambler being a hit.

# ..Boredom overtook us... #

Previously recorded by Bobby Bare and Johnny Cash,

neither version had made an impact.

It didn't matter to him that it had been cut before

and hadn't succeeded. He knew a good song.

That's his genius.

The Gambler, to me, is THE perfect country song.

It starts in a little place and it sucks the listener in,

you can't wait to hear what's going to happen next.

# .. You've got to know when to hold 'em

# Know when to fold 'em

# Know when to walk away

# And know when to run

# You never count your money

# When you're sitting at the table

# There'll be time enough for counting

# When the dealing's done... #

Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em -

those two lines right there

probably quoted more than any country song in history.

It's brilliantly crafted and made him a persona.

It's like, "Oh, that grey-beard guy with the raspy voice?

"He's The Gambler."

You might not know his name but you know he's The Gambler.

# ..The gambler, he broke even

# But in his final words

# I found an ace that I could keep... #

With the success of The Gambler,

it appeared Kenny had played his trump card,

but the artwork for the accompanying album led to Kenny's career

taking a surprising new direction.

It was a terrific picture,

and I had a huge poster of it made, like a movie-sized poster, you know?

And he walked up to the heads of... I guess it was CBS,

he walked on by and he said...

"I want to make a Movie of the Week."

And they looked at the picture,

and they went, "Sold."

# On a warm summer's evening... #

Inspired by the character in the song,

The Gambler TV movie starred Kenny in the lead role of Brady Hawkes.

'He was not an action hero.

'He had a limp, he walked with a cane.'

He had some bumps on him, you know,

which was great for Kenny.

SLURRED: Would you like to have a drink?

YELLING

That's an ugly beard.

Would you like me to part it for you real neatly

with this little derringer?

'He was a reluctant hero, you know?'

He could do it if he had to,

but he'd just as soon turn the corner and get away from it.

Just leave me alone, Mr Stobridge.

I still insist.

'He's the personality of Kenny Rogers'

brought to a character back in the 1800s in the West.

'I'm really good at being myself'

in different clothes. That's all I can do.

CRASHING

GUNSHOTS

'I mean, I was in good physical shape at the time,

'and I did a lot of my own stunts. It was a moment in time,'

and we were just capitalising on everything that came about.

'I remember getting those phone calls after the ratings came in,

'and Ken Kragen, who's a very enthusiastic guy to begin with,'

had a lot to be enthusiastic about. It was through the roof.

'The highest-rated TV movie of all time, at that point.'

'Broke every record, had a share that,'

you know, the Super Bowl gets nowadays.

GUNSHOT

MUSIC STARTS

THEY LAUGH

The Gambler movie was watched by

more than half of all TV viewers in America.

Kenny Rogers cleaned up.

I'm a gambler.

He became a regular fixture on US TV,

with a series of sequels and spin-offs over the next two decades.

# Everyone considered him

# The coward of the county

# He'd never stood one single time

# To prove the county wrong... #

'We would pile success and activity on top of activity.'

We were creating momentum that just carried us right through to

the next project, the next record, the next movie, whatever.

Kenny's 1980 LP Gideon was another bold move.

He approached his old friend from the New Christy Minstrels Kim Carnes

and her husband David Ellingson to write and produce a concept album

about a cowboy looking back on his life.

# Excuse me, ma'am I'd like your daughter's hand

# For the evenin'... #

'This was just...'

"Wow." He's so huge as an artist,

and the fact that we had the opportunity to write ten songs

was just phenomenal.

# ..used to be my neighbour

# And he'd never slept a day in his life... #

'His voice and his phrasing'

was the inspiration for how we wrote every song.

I had to hear him singing it to know, how would he phrase this?

What would he say?

# Don't fall in love with a dreamer... #

The song Don't Fall In Love With A Dreamer

features Kenny's unique vocal style in a duet with Kim.

# ..just when you think... #

'I had to up my game, because I'm singing with Kenny,

'I don't want to screw up!'

What you get doing that live is the adrenaline.

And I can hear the adrenaline in our vocals to this day.

# Don't fall in love

# With a dreamer

# Cos he'll break you every time

# Oh, no, no

# Just hold on

# Before we say goodbye. #

'Kim and I sound good together'

cos we sound like we're haemorrhaging.

Both of us were just full-out.

I don't like that description!

'He's definitely got a really distinctive voice.

'You hear him on the radio and there's no mistaking who it is.'

# And if you knew what I was thinkin', girl

# I'd turn around now... #

'It is an astounding instrument.'

It has all of that furry, rough, gruff quality,

and yet it has enormous range.

# Don't fall in love with a dreamer... #

'There's something very special'

about that voice, and that's what's made him a superstar.

'What really set his career off was this thing where'

his voice would go huh-huh-huh-huh-huh.

And I don't know how he got that, or learned it, or why he did it.

'It became like a trademark for him, you know?'

# Good-bye-y-y-y-y-y-y. #

Their gravelly-voiced duet went top ten

in the US Billboard and Country charts.

But as a new decade dawned, Kenny was beginning to feel constrained

by his country-oriented repertoire.

He now took the biggest gamble of his musical career.

'The problem was,'

Larry and I were cutting the same songs over again,

just new titles.

And I wanted to kind of step out. I remembered the Ray Charles album

where he sang country songs R&B,

and I said, "What if I take R&B songs and sing 'em country?"

So that's when I called Lionel,

and I said, "Lionel, I'd love for you to write me a song.'

# Sail on, honey... #

Lionel Richie was songwriter and frontman

with the funk-soul band The Commodores,

but for a country singer like Kenny,

working with a soul star like Lionel had its risks.

Lionel presented him with the bare bones of a new tune.

'The Commodores, you don't finish the song,

'because, you know, you bring in'

ten songs, you go "da da da" - "No, next."

"Da da da..." "Next."

So you don't finish it,

otherwise you just wasted a lot of time

writing a song they're going to throw away.

So he comes over and I was backstage,

I was working at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas.

And he sits down and he had a little upright piano.

And he plays, # Lady...

# I'm your knight in shining armour and I love you

# Ba ba ba ba ba ba

# Ba ba ba... #

"Do you like that song?"

I said, "Actually, I like it, I like the way it sounds."

So he went back home and he wrote the first verse.

# Lady

# I'm your knight in shining armour

# And I love you

# You have made me what I am

# And I am yours... #

With Kenny's seal of approval,

they recorded the song a week later at his LA studio.

# My love

# There's so many ways I want to say

# I love you... #

'I'm singing the first verse'

and I realise there is no second verse!

So I turned to some people and I said, "Where's Lionel?"

I went to the bathroom to finish the second verse.

Cos I didn't have it!

He has to have that kind of pressure.

He has to do it now, or it doesn't work.

It's all true. I would love to tell you...

I didn't go TO the bathroom, I went to the bathroom.

To write the second verse to the song.

# Lady

# For so many years I thought

# I'd never find you... #

The session resulted in both of them

learning different ways of doing things.

'Kenny was used to going and doing an album in three or four days.'

With Lionel, he would sing a note

and he'd stop you and say, "Let's redo that note."

I did it the Commodore way.

"OK, Kenny, you were a little sharp on that. Start again.

Kenny couldn't believe it.

I mean, it was not the way Kenny was used to recording.

It was a whole different approach.

He said, "What are you stopping for?"

I said, "Your voice is cracking."

He said, "No, no, no, no. I'm trying to crack."

I said, "Explain that to me."

He said, "Lionel, in the pop world, the righter the note,

"the righter it is. In country music,

"the note that's wrong is the right note.

"Why? Because it's believable."

"Thank you, Kenny, and let's go back and finish the song."

# In my eyes

# I see no-one else but you

# There's no other love like our love

# And yeah... #

'The marriage was perfect between artist and song.

'There's a vulnerable side to KR'

that comes out in that song.

Here's a guy who wanted to surrender to the love of his life.

It was magical.

# Lady... #

But would Kenny's punt on a soulful love song

alienate an audience he'd worked hard to establish?

# ..Only love I need... #

The tricky part was, how were the country people

going to feel about it?

Because they were quite uppity about what's country and what isn't.

You were either country or you were pop or you were a rock band.

He took some blows with that, because it became,

"Well, Kenny's not quite country."

# Cos my love... #

'It was a bit of a risk to do it,

'but my goal was to get a bigger audience'

and do something that I felt more qualified to do than other people,

because I'd come through the Bobby Doyle era

and the folk stuff in the first edition.

'It wasn't out of my comfort zone.'

# You're my lady... #

He's one of the few artists that can pull that off.

Usually your audience won't let you do it as an artist.

But for some reason, people just followed him.

The end result was a huge, huge hit record in all genres,

not just R & B, it was a hit record in every area.

To this day, really, one of the biggest of all

Kenny Rogers' records ever.

Kenny and Lionel had created a monster crossover hit

that scored big around the world.

# I'm your knight in shining armour

# And I love you... #

The song appeared on Kenny's 1980 Greatest Hits album,

helping it sell over 12 million copies in the US alone.

He could pull any arena he wanted to go to -

going to go to Denver today, San Antonio tomorrow.

Find a venue and then they would take the show,

because everybody knew it was going to be a sell-out.

Seats were selling out in four hours.

It was really a good time for him touring wise and everything.

# Show me a bar

# With a good-looking woman

# Then just get out of my way... #

'We did some of the most incredible production.'

I just loved it.

It was one of those things that we couldn't do

anything wrong at the time.

The period saw Kenny enter the celebrity stratosphere,

living the good life with Marianne

in their 13 million Bel-Air mansion.

Less than five years earlier, he'd been virtually bankrupt.

He was an American icon at that point. There was no-one bigger.

Black people, White people, everybody knew him.

He was huge. He was a worldwide bonafide star.

That was really the prime of my career.

It just catapulted me to a whole different stage.

Kenny's hold on his audience now extended way beyond country pop,

and in 1983 he moved in a soft rock direction.

Kenny had this great idea to cover the Bob Seger song

We've Got Tonight.

Then he had another brilliant idea

to get probably one of the hottest girls at the time in the business

Sheena Easton and put the two of them together.

# I've been so lonely... #

Sheena had shot to fame after winning a BBC TV talent competition

and had recorded the Bond theme For Your Eyes Only.

# I've longed for love... #

I loved working with Sheena Easton, but, you know,

when you sing duets with people, you start with the song.

'Then you say, "Who could do this well?"'

I think that's what I've been best at - picking partners.

# So there it is, girl... #

He really new knew how to craft duets.

I would say now, after all the duets I've written in my life,

I go back to that moment.

It was a great learning moment for me.

I was so mesmerised by his talent.

BOTH: # We've got tonight

# Who needs tomorrow?

# We've got tonight, babe... #

We've Got Tonight gave Kenny and Sheena

a worldwide hit single in 1983.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

That same year he began working on a new album

written and produced by Bee Gee Barry Gibb.

On it was a tricky song called Islands In The Stream.

What makes his music so contagious -

everything is written on the upbeat instead of the downbeat.

# Baby, when I met... #

And you go, "Oh, my God." It took me for ever to learn that.

So we go in the studio and I'd sing Islands In The Stream for four days.

I finally said, "Barry, I don't even like this song anymore."

He said, "You know what we need? We need Dolly Parton."

I had met Dolly, but I didn't really know her.

My manager says, "I just saw her downstairs." I said,

"Well, go get her." She came in there, that song was never the same

once she started singing it.

# No more will you cry

# Baby, I will hurt you never

BOTH: # We start and end as one

# In love for ever

# We can ride it together Ah-hah

# Making love with each other Ah-hah

# Islands in the stream

# That is what we are

# No-one in... #

Excuse me, Kenny.

# How can we be wrong?

# Sail away with me

# To another world

# And we rely on each other Ah-hah

# From one lover to another Ah-hah... #

I think Islands In The Stream is one of the most brilliant records ever.

There's a hook and then there's another hook.

So just when you think...

Cos you can sing along with the pre-hook, cos it sounds like a hook,

then it goes into the hook and it's even better than the pre-hook.

Islands In The Stream is a great, great record.

It's a magic moment in pop music.

A perfectly crafted duet.

Kenny and Dolly together are electrifying.

BOTH: # Sail away with me

# To another world... #

As great a singer as he is,

there's nothing like another great singer to make you really great.

'I think everybody sings better on duets.'

You know, I'll sing something and Dolly or Dotty

or Kim Carnes or Sheena Easton will something else, and I'll go,

"Wait, if you're going to do that, let me do this,"

cos you don't want to suffer by comparison.

I think you grow exponentially when you sing duets with people.

In a career full of successful duets,

this one topped the lot.

Selling over 2 million copies in the US alone

and going top ten around the globe,

Islands In The Stream was the ultimate musical melding of voices

from country music's biggest stars.

For ever linked by the song, Kenny and Dolly's rapport

captured the record buying public's imagination.

BOTH: # From one lover to another Ah-hah

# Whoa, won't you sail?

KENNY: # Sail away, sail away

# Sail away with me. #

Yay, Kenny!

In 1985, Kenny became involved in a musical charity project

that was to go down in history.

In response to the horrific famine in Ethiopia,

British musicians founded Band Aid to raise money for relief efforts.

In the States, Harry Belafonte wanted

the US music industry to do the same.

Ken Kragen was asked to pull it together.

# We can't go on

# Pretending day by day

Kenny was the first phone call I made after

I hung up with Harry Belafonte.

I called Kenny and said,

"Here's what we're doing. Are you in?" He said, "Count me in."

ALL: # We are the world

# We are the children... #

Initial work on the USA For Africa song

was carried out at Kenny's Lion Share studios in LA

and the subsequent star-studded sessions

were produced by Quincy Jones.

'Lionel and Michael Jackson wrote it. What do I bring to this?

'But that group of people was the cream of the cream.

'It was really a humbling experience.'

It was, more importantly, a great cause.

I think we all knew that.

We Are The World became America's fastest selling pop single ever,

with global sales of over 20 million.

Kenny also got involved in further projects,

which raised over 50 million for the charity in its first year alone.

Kenny played a major role in everything we did

subsequent to that - Hands Across America

and every project, Kenny was always there,

always willing, always generous and always cared about it.

His philanthropy perhaps stemmed

from his own poor upbringing in Texas.

Despite fame and fortune, he never forgot his roots.

He had fought his way, through hard work and talent,

out of poverty into a success.

Not only to succeed, but to live at a pretty high,

"I've made it" kind of life.

MUSIC: The Pride Is Back by Kenny Rogers with Nickie Ryder

With mega-stardom, Kenny gained the freedom

to explore and master interests beyond music,

always with the drive to be the best at everything he turned his hand to.

Constant touring was the route to a major passion

for the challenge-hungry Rogers.

I took a picture and someone said, "Boy, you're a great photographer."

I said, "I'm not a great photographer,

"but I go to great places."

I realised that there's an opportunity here

for me to see how good I could get at photography.

Kenny hired renowned photographer John Sexton

to help him develop his talent.

Kenny was obsessed with trying to do the best that he possibly

could at that time.

He was also a great student, because his desire was always

to do better tomorrow than he had done the day before.

I just try to be great at everything.

I can't, but I just obsessed with it. I wanted to be really good at it.

With Sexton's guidance, Kenny fanatically set about

improving his skills, even when he was on the road.

He would shoot the shot, do the concert,

fly home to Athens, Georgia,

go in the dark room - not digital, chemicals.

We burned the midnight oil.

We were printing until the wee hours of the morning.

Some of his friends wondered when he would sleep.

By ten o'clock the next morning was a mounted print

of the shot from the day before.

Take it out, show the band, jump on the plane,

do it again in the next city.

He just could keep going and going. It just about killed me.

He never had to sleep.

Having started out as an enthusiastic amateur,

Kenny's dedication to his craft has resulted in a spectacular portfolio.

The best of Kenny's work is very, very well done.

Whether it's working in the landscape

and also working with people.

His portraits, I think, are exceptional.

First of all, I told everyone they'd be in and out in 15 minutes.

My goal was to shoot pictures that showed personality,

that showed people how I saw them.

When Walter Matthau came in, it was raining.

I said, "Just walk right over there and sit down,"

cos that is so Walter Matthau to me.

Michael Jackson, 1998.

He was there for eight hours because guys like him and Elvis,

they don't have many people they can chitchat with.

That hang out meant more to me than the picture or anything else,

but he was an incredible guy.

Sammy Davis Jr.

He used to come on stage in Vegas and sing The Gambler with me.

He loved that song.

This is, I think, maybe one of the best photographs

I've ever taken technically.

It's Rachel McLish the body builder.

Kenny's photographic skills continue to earn him recognition

and earlier this year, he was awarded

a prestigious honorary degree

by the American Professional Photographer's Association.

I love taking pictures, I love the respect I've gotten,

and I love what I've accomplished in this period of time.

Through the late-'80s,

Kenny was kept busy with his photography and TV movies.

But musically, he failed to maintain his chart success,

and in 1991, the previously squeaky clean Rogers

was involved in a tabloid-fuelled sex scandal.

MUSIC: Daytime Friends by Kenny Rogers

Some of it was true and I deserved some. I didn't deserve some.

# But she knows too well there's something going on... #

It was more embarrassing than painful,

cos you don't get a chance to defend yourself,

cos then you print your defence of it,

which was just compounding the problem.

It's hard when you have kids and the wife stays home

and you're on the road.

He had resisted all that for many, many years,

but then things started happening.

He turned 50 and he wanted validation that he was still sexy.

I felt, as I look back at it, that he really had, sort of,

a midlife crisis - a true midlife crisis.

In 1993, Kenny's crisis led to the break-up

of his 16-year marriage to Marianne,

signalling the end of a sustained run of superstardom.

But a large, devoted fan base stuck with him

and although hit records were rare,

his tours and Christmas shows were consistent crowd pleasers.

In 1997, Kenny married his fifth wife, Wanda.

With his past failings having being made so public,

Kenny has been determined to make their relationship work.

You know, fame is one of those things that's a double-edged sword.

It's sometimes a fine line between being driven and being selfish.

I think that at some times I may have been selfish

with my family before, but I won't do that again.

The arrival of twin sons Justin and Jordan in 2004

arguably presented a 65-year-old Kenny

with the biggest challenge of his life.

It also marked a period of happiness and stability.

I just want to be here long enough to teach them some of my values,

my mom's values and some of my dad's sense of humour.

-Four and a half.

-Five!

His temperament is just very even keel.

Kenny never gets frustrated, he never gets angry.

He says it's a choice. You wake up and you're happy.

I think that carries over into how he makes other people feel.

The happy, feel-good factor continues to be a major part

of Rogers' live appeal. And as his hugely successful set

at 2013's Glastonbury festival proved,

he's now viewed as a bonafide American icon.

# Everyone considered him

# The coward of the county... #

There was such a diverse bunch of people in the audience.

Glastonbury - that was the highlight of our career.

# Well, I just called... #

Just seas of people as far as you could see

and they seemed to sing along and everybody had a great time. It was good.

That was an incredible experience and

I was particularly happy with it.

I knew that was going to be unique.

# You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille... #

CROWD CHEERS

Back in the US that same year, Kenny Rogers' iconic status was

confirmed when he was finally inducted into the Country Music Hall Of Fame.

And with Kenny's live shows still packing them in,

he's always ready to meet his legions of fans.

-Thanks, guys.

-Thank you so much.

It's a pleasure to finally meet you.

'He recognises the fact that this is a big deal for someone to

'meet him.'

They make their whole year or something, you know?

That loyalty is most apparent in the people

he surrounds himself with on tour.

'Most of that band and the road crew, I mean,'

we were dealing with those same guys in the 1970s.

'He treats people well and you want to be with him

'and you want to work with him.'

'He recognises we have family just like he has.'

He's watched all our kids grow up, he knows all their names,

you know, all the kids hang out together.

You're singing.

'My guys are very special.

'They're like my family, you know,'

and I really feel for them.

When something goes wrong with one of them, I feel their pain.

# You travel the world with a six-piece band

# That does for you... #

'They protect me.

'We get in that room and start singing, they're right there.'

# Nobody sings a love song quite like you. #

People always ask me,

"How long do you think he's going to perform?"

And I said, "I think he'd admit that he loves that

"hour and 20 minutes on stage and he would miss that."

It is now...or never...

'I'm at that great space where I can work as much as I want to work,

'but I don't have to work.

'Money isn't what drives me,'

the relationship with the audience is what drives me.

'He is an entertainer, I think, in the true sense of the word.'

He's the whole package and he always was.

# Tender love is fine... #

For over half a century, Kenny has kept us entertained with

some of the best-known and best-loved music ever recorded.

With a career spanning everything from jazz to folk,

'60s psychedelia to R&B, perhaps his real legacy lies in the fact that

he introduced a pop sensibility to country music that was trailblazing.

By opening that door and taking that risk,

he opened the door for everybody else to come through.

He brought a new audience to country

and all of Nashville benefitted from that.

He gave country class.

# I can't live without you if the love is gone...#

You can't teach star power to artists and those that really,

truly have it...live on.

'You don't think that what music is for me, is my purpose.

'I go out there and I get to do what I do and people make me

'feel good in return for that,'

and success is no reason to quit.

You know, it's a great reason to keep going on.

# Islands in the stream That is what we are

# No-one in between How can we be wrong?

# Sail away with me To another world

# And we rely on each other Uh huh

# From one lover to another Uh huh

# Sail away Sail away with me. #