Country music legend Kenny Rogers passed away last night at the age of 81, according to his family.
A statement by the family said: “The Rogers family is sad to announce that Kenny Rogers passed away last night at 10.25PM at the age of 81. Rogers passed away peacefully at home from natural causes under the care of hospice and surrounded by his family.”
We have highlighted few things you may not know about this great musician below:
1. Kenneth Ray Rogers was born and raised in Houston, in a poor family, on August 21, 1938.
2. He was an American singer, songwriter, actor, record producer, and entrepreneur.
3. In the late 1950s, he started his recording career with jazz-singer Bobby Doyle.
4. His signature song is 1978’s “The Gambler”, a cross-over hit that won him a Grammy award in 1980 and was selected in 2018 for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress.
5. Though he has been most successful with country audiences, Rogers has charted more than 120 hit singles across various music genres.
6. He topped the country and pop album charts for more than 200 individual weeks in the United States alone, and has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
7. On September 25, 2015, Rogers announced on NBC’s Today Show that he was retiring from show business after a final tour to spend more time with his wife and twin sons.
8. Two of his albums, The Gambler and Kenny, are featured in the About.com poll of “The 200 Most Influential Country Albums Ever”.
9. Rogers has received numerous awards such as the AMAs, Grammys, ACMs and CMAs, as well as a lifetime achievement award for a career spanning six decades in 2003.
10. Later success includes the 2006 album release, Water & Bridges, an across the board hit, that hit the Top 5 in the Billboard Country Albums sales charts, also charting in the Top 15 of the Billboard 200. The first single from the album, “I Can’t Unlove You”, was also a sizable chart hit.
11. Remaining a popular entertainer around the world, Rogers continued to tour regularly until his retirement in 2017.
12. He has acted in a variety of movies and television shows, most notably the title roles in Kenny Rogers as The Gambler and the MacShayne series for The NBC Mystery Movie, and the 1982 feature film Six Pack.
13. He was a co-founder of the restaurant chain Kenny Rogers Roasters in collaboration with former Kentucky Fried Chicken CEO John Y. Brown Jr.
14. Rogers died “peacefully” on 20 March, 2020.
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