photo by Mike Carroll
Two days removed from being informed that he will be part of the Country Music Hall of Fame‘s Class of 2013, Kenny Rogers put on a very entertaining show at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach on Friday, April 12th. The surprisingly spry 74-year-old legend, with over 120 charted singles over multiple genres and over 130 million records sold, got the show started with a couple of songs that were not familiar to many in the crowd before stopping to give what you might call a little stand-up comedy routine. He cracked that he had lights installed so that he could watch folks in the first few rows watching him. He went on to single out a few fans in the crowd to playfully pick on them, including how it baffled him how a fan in the 8th row needed to watch the show through a huge pair of binoculars. He commented on how he can tell when husbands get dragged to his shows by their wives, and on this night, singled out a guy in the front row that didn’t look too enthused to be there. Rogers challenged him that by the end of the night that he was going to be a big fan, and told him to raise his hand anytime he heard a song that he recognized. As the show went on, you could hear a chuckle from the crowd when the man raised his hand, as Rogers threw him $10 for every song he recognized. “I’m not above buying my fans!” Rogers joked.
He then got back to doing what he does best, and really got the crowd into it as he dove into “Through the Years,” “She Believes In Me,” and “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.” He then stopped to tell a joke about two men that met in 1955 named Sam and Joe. They went to many baseball games together, and quickly became lifelong best friends. Many years later, as Sam is on his death bed, Joe asks him to find out if baseball is played in heaven. A few days later, as friends were visiting Sam’s casket, Joe hears Sam’s voice say, “Joe, I have good and bad news. Yes, they play; but you’re pitching next Thursday.” This story was the lead-in to his next song, which is one of my personal favorites, “The Greatest,” which is a story about a little boy struggling to hit baseball that he is tossing up into the air to himself. If you’ve never heard the song before, check it out…it just might bring a tear to your eye, especially if you’re a baseball fan.
The show continued with Rogers performing many of his biggest hits, including “Love The World Away,” “Rueben James,” “Coward of the County,” “Daytime Friends,” and “Buy Me a Rose.” He then changed things up a bit to perform some songs from his early days when he was in a band called The First Edition. That part of his set list included “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” and “Something’s Burning.”
Rogers went on to perform his 1982 #1 hit “We’ve Got Tonight,” which was originally a duet with Sheena Easton. The next song was a bit of a surprise…he launched into “Ol’ Red,” the song made famous by Blake Shelton in 2002! It turns out that Kenny Rogers recorded the song in 1993 on his If Only My Heart Had a Voice album, but didn’t release it as a single. Just as surprising, George Jones had recorded it before Rogers did on his 1990 You Oughta Be Here With Me album!
He went on to finish the show with “Have a Little Faith In Me,” “The Gambler,” and “Lucille” before joking that he realized as he gets older that leaving the stage just to come back for an encore isn’t worth the wasted steps and theatrics, especially when everyone knows he’d be coming back out. So he used this explanation as his “rest” period before launching into his encore, where he played his 1980 #1 smash hit, the Lionel Ritchie penned “Lady,” and his big duet hit with Dolly Parton, “Islands in the Stream.” As he ended the show, he threw the rest of $10 bills he had to the fan in the front row, making it a memorable night for what is sure to be a new fan of Kenny Rogers.
The show lasted about 70 minutes and was a wonderfully entertaining trip down memory lane. If you ever have a chance to see this living legend who can now add Hall of Famer to his resume, please do yourself a favor and do it! You will laugh, you will get goose bumps, and you might even cry. You will definitely walk away with a night to remember for the rest of your life.