Kenny Rogers knows when to fold ’em, launches farewell tour
Maybe it’s the lure of the spotlight or the itch to earn a few more hundred thousand bucks. Whatever the reason, when most superstars announce their impending farewell tour, you can start placing bets on how long after that the comeback tour begins.
Not so with Kenny Rogers. Talk to him about The Gambler’s Last Deal, his final procession to many of the world’s major arenas, and you know that he really means it.
“I’m 77 years old,” the threetime Grammy Award-winner says. “I’m in good health now, but my mobility has suffered really badly. I honestly don’t know how much longer I’m gonna last. So I wanted to get out there while I could still sing well.”
More important is Rogers’ desire to be a full-time father to Jordan and Justin, his identical-twin, 11-year-old sons. Also, he simply has nothing left to prove. Sixty years have passed since he debuted with his high school band, The Scholars. (“I promise you, that name was a misnomer,” he says with a chuckle.) Quite a story followed: 24 No. 1 singles, first with The First Edition and for decades after that on his own; 120 million worldwide album sales; multiple Lifetime Achievement Awards; election to the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Rather than dwell on his honors and accomplishments, Rogers focuses now on his last string of shows. The tour currently is scheduled through November. With Grammy-winning country singer Linda Davis pinch-hitting for his former duet partners Dolly Parton and Dottie West, backed by a band that’s been traveling and tracking with Rogers for upwards of 40 years, The Gambler’s Last Deal follows a moreor-less chronological path, with a few rare gems scattered among the classics along the way. “I sent out a questionnaire to my fan club and asked, ‘Are there any songs you would like me specifically to do?’ ” Rogers says. “Well, many of them wrote back about a song called Love Lifted Me, which I wrote back when I was in the choir at my Baptist church. There was another song, Tell It All, Brother, which we hadn’t done in years. The first time we sang it was at Kent State in the middle of all that feedback with the police (the Kent State University shootings of May 4, 1970). It’s pretty self-explanatory in that it’s about people going to war. “I’m amazed at how many people know these songs I haven’t done in a long time. But it’s wonder-
ful because my audiences have lived with me through most of this.”
For newer fans, The Gambler, Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town, Coward Of the County, Reu
ben James and other earlier Rogers hits may introduce them to an era when country music was more narrative and when songs told stories. “Well, you know, that’s country music the way I like it,” Rogers muses. “That doesn’t mean that the new people like it. They may like more of the personal songs about what they’re going to do with their lives.”
So it’s not Rogers’ mission to change minds. “I accomplished much more than I ever set out to do,” he reflects. “When you run out of things to reach for, then you might as well hang it up and say thank you.”
He smiles. “One thought I originally had was to call this ‘The End of the Rainbow Tour’ because I get to see the end of the rainbow, and most people don’t.”