Kenny Rogers,
country-pop hitmaker and crossover star, dies at 81
By NARDINE SAADSTAFF WRITER
MARCH 20, 2020 11:44 PM Kenny Rogers was broke, three times
divorced and picking out a living as a bass player with a country-rock
outfit called “The First Edition” when a sentimental ballad
about a lovesick husband rolled onto his lap.
In “Lucille,” Rogers found a comfortable
middle ground in the vast stretches between country and pop
music, fertile turf that would yield a remarkable string of
aching love songs and narrative ballads about gamblers, drifters
and lost souls searching for love.
While country music purists balked
at his syrupy message-in-a-song ballads, his fans packed arenas
that only the titans of rock could fill, his hits climbed the
charts and his genial persona and bourbon-smooth voice became
a natural fit in America in the 1970s and ‘80s.
Never far from the spotlight, Rogers
died Friday of natural causes while in hospice care at his home
in Sandy Springs, Ga., said his representative, Keith Hagan.
He was 81.
カントリーのレジェンド、ケニー・ロジャースが3月20日に死去した。昭和13年生まれ81歳だった。
20年ほど前、彼の「ケニー・ロジャース スタンダードを歌う」というCDから”You
Are So Beautiful”を覚えた。そうしたら、Dolly Bakerが、”Gambler”をカセットに入れて送ってくれた。”Gambler”が彼の代表曲とのこと。
