Luck or Something Like It (16 page)

He jumped into the car with us. The arena was only a few miles away, but traffic was bumper to bumper. Keith Bugos called from the arena and kept checking on our progress. There was dead silence in the car. We were stuck on the one road in. At about 8:15 we were still all in the car inching along. We waited as long as we could and then the Oaks had to go on. Jerry had missed his first show.

You can see how much that mistake hurt his career. Someday I would honestly love to hear his side of the story. I bet it’s really different from mine.

I had another rendezvous with Jerry about fifteen years later. Actually it wasn’t me. It was some of my chicken. Let me back up a little to tell the story.

With celebrity comes opportunity. The most difficult part is deciding what to lend your name to, so when I was approached for a chicken franchise, I was a bit skeptical. I had visions of them putting my head on a chicken. That just didn’t feel right. So you can imagine my surprise when I agreed and the franchise turned out to be a very respectable chain of restaurants. It was called Kenny Rogers Roasters.

The former governor of Kentucky, John Y. Brown, one of the main forces in Kentucky Fried Chicken and a good friend, brought the idea to me. It was actually one of the first health-driven restaurants. We all know how much I love health food. I start each morning with a Diet Coke and an Egg McMuffin. But it is great when healthy food tastes good.

The food was right up my alley, with entries like mac and cheese, string beans, garlic potatoes, and wood-grilled chicken roasted on a rotisserie right at the restaurant. Who wouldn’t love that? For about three years the chain was extremely successful and appeared to have a very bright future. To this day, it is one of the most successful international fast-food franchises in parts of the world.

One time when I was in Greece, I saw a Kenny Rogers Roasters and decided to go in. I opted not to say who I was, but just stand in line and buy my food. The cups had my picture on them and I noticed that behind the counter and down the way the manager was holding one. He was really curious. He kept looking at me, then the cup, then back at me, and finally decided it wasn’t me! When I told him it was me, he didn’t believe it. Anyway I assume that’s what he said in Greek. He made me pay for my meal.

Roasters had a very high visibility based on its acceptance by the people and the publicity that came from unsolicited sources. One night when I was doing
The
Tonight Show,
Jay Leno took the cameras and crew and went to the Roasters across the street from the studio in Burbank and brought back chicken to the audience.

So I decided that I could play the promotion game, too, and I went on
Late Night with Conan O’Brien
to talk about Roasters chicken. Conan put a blindfold over my eyes and put three pieces of chicken in front of me and dared me to pick the best chicken. My God, it was Roasters and I had a 33 percent chance at being right. Unfortunately, the chicken I picked was wrong. I honestly believe everyone thought it was a gag and thought we were good sports to do that.

Then Jerry Seinfeld dedicated a whole show to Kenny Rogers Roasters chicken. In the show, a Roasters opened next to his apartment building. He and Kramer detested the smell of chicken roasting at ten in the morning. The light from the Roasters neon sign was also keeping Kramer awake at night. They schemed to shut the restaurant down, but Kramer, with the help of Jerry’s nemesis, Newman, became hopelessly addicted to the chicken. After eventually closing us down at the end of the episode, Kramer, with his head out the window, screamed, “Kenny, come back!” We wouldn’t. We had our pride.

It was a great episode. I think most people appreciate self-deprecating humor. Maybe the
Seinfeld
episode had more effect than we had anticipated. We went out of business about a year later.

I also worked for a year or two with Gallagher. I found this guy to be one of the most engaging, thought-provoking people I’ve ever met. He had a line in his show that to this day makes me stop and try to visualize what he was saying. His question: “What would a chair look like if our legs bent the other way?” I strongly urge you not to spend a lot of time trying to figure that out.

Gallagher’s showstopper was the smashing of a large watermelon in the middle of the stage with a sledgehammer. Every night I watched people laugh and be amazed at the audacity of someone doing this. It has great shock value.

One night at the Riviera, just before Gallagher went onstage, I noticed a man in a completely white suit in the front row, only a few feet from the soon-to-be-exploding melon. I pleaded with Gallagher to cancel the watermelon for the show. His response: “Kenny, that’s my hit song, my ‘Gambler.’ Would you close without that song?”

Well, the moment onstage came, the watermelon was smashed to bits, and the man in the white suit, along with half the audience, was covered with chunks of it. At the intermission before I went on, I had the chance to go out and apologize to the guy and offer to replace the suit, no matter the cost. I sheepishly approached with my heartfelt apology and offer. He said, “Are you kidding? That’s the most fun I’ve had in twenty years.” All he wanted to do was to meet Gallagher in person. That was easily arranged and the man went home looking a mess, but happy.

Chapter Twelve

The Gambler

Starting with the release
of “Lucille” in 1977, my life would never be the same. If I were looking for my niche in my life and career, I had found it. I showed up in Nashville at the right time; had the love and support of my new wife, Marianne; had the right people like Jim Mazza, Ken Kragen, and Larry Butler guiding the way; and was almost divinely fortunate to find the right songs that fit me, the times, and the listening public. Every artist prays for that one song that defines them when the public hears it. “The Gambler” was mine.

I have to admit that things moved so fast during such a short period of time that parts of it are like a blur to me. I may be jumping back and forth a little here, but I’ll do my best to keep things straight.

If “Lucille” launched this rocket, and my work with Dottie helped fuel it, “The Gambler” sent it even higher. “The Gambler” is a story song written by veteran, Grammy-winning writer Don Schlitz, a Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee, who later wrote No. 1 hits for Randy Travis and Keith Whitley, among others. Don—a nongambler—thought it was as much a concept about how to live your life as a song about gambling. He had already pitched this song to many artists who passed on it. Bobby Bare did a recording and Don even recorded it himself, but in both cases, it hadn’t gone anywhere. No offense, but I thought those who passed on it had to be nuts. It was a great song, and I knew right away that we had another hit.

Don’s story in itself is pretty great. Not only is he a nongambler, he was a twenty-two-year-old computer programmer on the day “The Gambler” came to him. He was walking to work when he wrote the song in his head, beginning, in order, from the first line, “On a warm summer’s evenin’ on a train bound for nowhere . . .” By the time he showed up at the office, he had finished it. Like many songs, country or otherwise, the whole enterprise was a burst of pure inspiration, including these now-classic lyrics:

You got to know when to hold ’em,

Know when to fold ’em,

Know when to walk away, know when to run.

You never count your money

When you’re sittin’ at the table.

There’ll be time enough for countin’

When the dealin’s done.

The minute I heard the sing-along chorus I knew we had a shot at something big. Audiences love to sing along. Don Schlitz and I would give them something to sing along to.

“The Gambler,” Don’s first No. 1 hit, soared from the very beginning. The song earned almost every award there was, including, for Don, the Grammy Award for Best Country Song and the CMA Song of the Year, and for me, the Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance, CMA Male Vocalist of the Year, the American Music Award for Favorite Country Male Artist, and for all of us, CMA Album of the Year and the American Music Award for Favorite Country Album for two years running.

I remember so well when Don ambled to the microphone to accept his awards in front of an audience not used to seeing this man on a country music stage. He took a moment to take it all in, then said, “You know, I find all of this . . . very encouraging.”

I didn’t know at the time we recorded the song that Johnny Cash had also recorded it the same weekend we did. In fact, when the song was first reviewed in the
New York Times,
it was about Johnny’s version and not mine. But, for whatever reason, mine is the one that lasted.

After the “Gambler” single and album hit, we soon came out with another album, in 1979, simply called
Kenny.
The songs most remembered from that record were “You Decorated My Life,” the lead single, and another story song, “Coward of the County.” Then, in that narrative spirit, we produced a concept album, similar to the form of the First Edition concept album,
The Ballad of Calico.
Called
Gideon,
it was a song narrative of a cowboy looking back on his life. My old friend from the New Christy Minstrels days, Kim Carnes, was reunited with me by my friend and president of the record company, Jim Mazza. Kim and her husband, David Ellingson, wrote and produced the album. She had already had a huge hit with the song “Bette Davis Eyes,” and together as a duet, we produced another one with “Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer.” Again, as with Dottie and later with Dolly Parton and others, I had the great fortune of finding a partner to sing with in perfect harmony, both musically and emotionally.

Although Kim and I had been friends for several years, I don’t think that we had ever sang a duet together. In the Christys, there were nine of us, and we all sang all the time. So when Kim wrote the album
Gideon
and we started singing “Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer” together, we knew we had found something special. We both sounded like we were hemorrhaging when we sang hard. As hard as it is to believe, that was appealing. I’ve always felt that I sang so much better in duets than I do by myself. Singing is a little like running the hundred-yard dash. Someone tells you to run it as fast as you can, so you run it as fast as you think you can. But the minute you put someone beside you who runs faster, you can bet your ass you will run faster. That’s what happens to me with duets. I sing it as well as I think I can, but when I sing with partners like Kim, I inevitably sing it better.

One of my most memorable duets was never even released on a record. Steve Glassmeyer and I had written a song called “Lady Luck,” and I performed it on one of my television specials with my idol, Ray Charles. Ray played the piano and we sang it together. I knew once we started, it was an unfair race. He was going to run away from me, but I was going to do everything I could to keep up. The difference between Ray Charles and everyone else is that his music comes from a special place in his heart. Some people sing songs the way they learn them. The greats sing the way they feel. I remember asking him at one time, “How do you know when to do those soulful licks?” As only Ray Charles could put it, “If you have to think about them, they’re wrong.”

I didn’t know it
then, but the same year, 1980, that
Gideon
was released, “The Gambler” became a permanent part of my life. The song had been out there for a while, but in the wake of the song, the whole concept and story line quickly generated its own separate business and grew to be an iconic image for me.

Again, it all began with Ken Kragen. Ken lived in Los Angeles and was connected to all the major studios for music and television. He was like Jimmy Bowen—he had the knack of making other people see his vision. To expand upon the reach of “The Gambler,” Ken hired the famous L.A. concept photographer, Reid Miles, to shoot the cover for
The Gambler.
Reid spent the better part of two days setting the shot and arranged for hair, makeup, and wardrobe as well as locating this incredible cast of characters to fill out the frame before he even brought us in.

Once I got there and wardrobe put me in a classic western gambler outfit, the shot took only about an hour to finish, but it certainly did set people in the business talking. There was no doubt this needed to be a TV movie. The album cover looked like a still shot from the movie itself.

But again, Ken left nothing to chance. He attended an awards program, found two CBS executives backstage, and cornered them. He had made up a big poster of me as “The Gambler” and unfurled it for them to see. He had a one-line pitch.

“Don’t you think this guy needs to be in a movie?” he asked them.

The executives apparently agreed to a movie deal on the spot, sticking out their hands and saying, “Done!” As incredible as it sounds, that’s how simple it was! Ken is one of the best.

So here we go, making a western movie, with no idea how to do it or even where to start. You couldn’t find a greener actor than me. This was my first acting gig since my high school glee club production of the Gilbert and Sullivan musical
H.M.S. Pinafore.
The scriptwriters—script by Jim Byrnes, story by Jim Byrnes and Cort Casady—were smart enough to give me a bumbling partner, played by Bruce Boxleitner, to distract from my rudimentary acting skills.

My theory of acting, for what it’s worth, is that there are broadly two kinds of actors. First there are people who can act. You give them some unbelievable dialogue in an unbelievable situation, and they can make it totally believable. And they can embody a thousand different characters. And then there are actors like me. Give me believable dialogue in a believable situation and I can keep it believable.

I think that my talent in this area is that I’m good at being me in different clothes. I’ve been me in cowboy clothes, me in detective clothes, me as a racecar driver, and in
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,
I was me as a landscape photographer losing my eyesight from diabetes.

I am a really versatile, mediocre actor.

I was told, prior to shooting the first
Gambler,
that acting is really creating a character in your mind who has qualities and flaws that make him relatable to the audience. We decided that my character, Brady Hawkes, would have a limp and a cane that he could use for self-defense if necessary. The problem was that, greenhorn that I was, I would limp with my left leg one day and my right foot the next. On the fourth day, director Dick Lowry pointed out this inconsistency. Since I couldn’t remember which leg was bad, I hit upon the idea of putting a small stone in the boot of the bad leg as a reminder. I ended up creating a stone bruise on that foot for the duration of the production.

I won’t be using that technique again.

I think what the writers did so well was to make Brady Hawkes a part of true American history, with abundant references to real-life figures like Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill and real-life events like the San Francisco earthquake. On the day that history was actually made, Brady would be somewhere else in his journey, which is why you never saw his name in the history books. That was all part of the believability factor that allowed me to pull off the role.

The poster that Ken concocted turned into a critical and ratings smash TV movie, expertly directed by Lowry. On its first airing on CBS, it got a 50 percent share of everyone watching TV in America, becoming the highest-rated TV movie of all time. It went on to win two Emmys and set the stage for four sequels. Taken as a whole, it was the longest-running miniseries of television movies ever produced, spanning close to twenty years in time.
The Gambler,
for me, was the start of a long story-song movie era.

In 1981, coming off the first
Gambler
movie, we decided to convert another No. 1 hit, “Coward of the County,” into a movie. The song I recorded, written by Roger Bowling and Billy Ed Wheeler, told the germ of a powerful story. It profiled a young man named Tommy, who earns the reputation as the “coward of the county” since he never stood up for himself and fought.

The movie, also directed by Lowry, by now the go-to guy for every one of my movie projects, expanded on that essential story line. Set during World War II, I played a preacher in a southern town, the uncle of the “coward” and the brother of his dad in prison who had made his son promise not to make the same mistakes he had made—namely, fighting his way out of every situation. Tommy refused to fight until forced to defend the honor of his girlfriend against some local thugs, the Gatlin brothers, who had raped her. After locking the door to the bar and kicking the shit out of the Gatlin brothers, in true Clint Eastwood style, Tommy explains to his dad: “Sometimes you gotta fight when you’re a man.”

About this time I
started to worry that we were beginning to repeat ourselves musically, especially in the vein of country sagas like “The Gambler” and “Coward of the County.” Every new song submitted tried to mine the same lyrical and musical territory, and they all sounded the same. I needed to break the pattern.

One of the strengths of my eclectic musical history, perhaps dating all the way back to that day as a child when I heard gospel music pouring out of the little church in Houston, is that I never felt hamstrung by one form, even if I had been successful with it. During the First Edition days, for instance, I was perfectly comfortable going from a drug-culture song, “Just Dropped In,” to a country-tinged story song like “Ruby.” Having been exposed to and well versed in all kinds of music before Nashville, I saw no reason to limit the range of songs I could do after getting there.

Over the previous few years, I had developed a true appreciation of the R&B group the Commodores, which hit gold in 1978 with “Three Times a Lady.” I loved their music. The more I listened to them, the more it felt like, to me, they were writing what could have been country lyrics and singing them to R&B tracks. This is just the reverse of what Ray Charles had done when he took a country standard like “Georgia on My Mind” and gave it a soulful R&B makeover. I wondered what it would sound like for me to sing a country rendition of an R&B-flavored song.

Jim Mazza told me that a Commodores song had actually charted on the
Billboard
Country Top 100 and agreed that it would be a great idea to reach out to them to see if they would like to do something together. He said he would talk to the main writer for the group, Lionel Richie.

He called to arrange a meeting with Lionel and said he would send him a first-class ticket to meet me in Las Vegas where I was performing. Lionel hesitated. He told Jim that his songs were like his children and that he didn’t want to give any of them away. Jim told him the song would go on my greatest hits album, which would probably sell in the neighborhood of six million records. Lionel then asked, “Could I get two tickets?”

At the time I was working the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. I had just finished the show when Jim brought Lionel backstage. After a few minutes spent getting to know each other, we got around to the subject of music. I asked if he had something specific in mind to play me.