Sunday, March 22, 2020

ululate!

Country singer Kenny Rogers has died at the age of 81. He was already in hospice care when he passed away, so it's unlikely that his death has anything to do with the current global crisis.

I'm not a fan of country music when it involves twangy guitars and equally twangy accents. I'd rather listen to rap music. But there are some musicians who have been labeled "country" whose stylings I appreciate, and Kenny Rogers, with his famously smooth-yet-gravelly voice, is—was—one of them. In my personal pantheon of Tolerable Country Singers, we have Kenny Rogers, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, and very few others.

Here are a few of Rogers's songs that form part of my childhood:



I had trouble hunting down this last one, but it's thoughtful and optimistic, and might just be my favorite of the Kenny Rogers oeuvre. I remember it for the "raindrops" in the background:


RIP, Mr. Rogers. You brightened the world while you were with us.



2 comments:

John Mac said...

He was a good one for sure. The first song I remember of his wasn't country at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WUTlCTi7fg

John from Daejeon said...

That last one was the first song of his I ever heard as it is the theme song to a little film starring Kenny, Erin Gray, Diane Lane, and Anthony Michael Hall, Six Pack.

Here's the actual opening to the film with "Love Will Turn You Around." His chicken was pretty good as well.