Kenny Rogers remains as popular as ever

Kenny Rogers remains as popular as ever

By Gus Kairupan

JAKARTA (JP): The lights went down, a lively flourish sounded
from the seven-piece band, and on the stage stepped mega-star
Kenny Rogers to the accompaniment of thunderous applause from the
audience at the Jakarta Hilton Convention Center.

The charity event on Tuesday was to aid the Indonesian Red
Cross, and if the audience's enthusiastic welcome is anything to
go by, Kenny Rogers is still as popular as when he first stepped
into the international limelight more than 30 years ago.

He may have said that "there comes a time when musicians
cannot live up to what fans want to hear", but true as that may
be, in his case the time seems to be quite a distance away yet.

But even if it arrives sooner rather than later, Kenny Rogers
is well set up to deal with it after having branched out into
other non-musical fields including acting, photography, and a
chain of roast chicken restaurants to be launched soon.

He has enjoyed a good reputation in the U.S. since the early
1960's, but didn't attain international stardom until he formed
the group known as "Kenny Rogers & The First Edition" -- at
least, I can remember first coming across his records at about
that time, i.e. mid-to-late 1960's, when I was still a radio
announcer, closely following the latest developments in music.
Unfortunately, Reuben James is the only song I remember.

A lot was happening to country music during that far-away
decade. Such groups like Creedence Clearwater Revival and the
quartet, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were doing all sorts of
funny things to country music, i.e. rocking it up. It would've
been the influence of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and
country music stars like Kenny Rogers, too, wouldn't have been
immune to the new sounds and rhythms.

Forefront

But whereas many of the top performers of those days have
disappeared, he's still very much in the forefront in the
entertainment world.

But by and large, Kenny Rogers and company stuck to country
music, or rather, country music that has been (and will continue
to be) adjusted to the times.

Of course it isn't strictly Nashville (which, incidentally,
seems to have lost its luster as country music capital of the
U.S.), but then, time has a habit of changing, and dragging
mankind along in the process.

So what if there are purists who like their country music pure
and unadulterated and disapprove of what Kenny Rogers does to it.
He may not be presenting the exact type of country music from the
Hatfield versus McCoy region (which will still have a following,
of course), but his is the type that has a far wider appeal.

He hasn't changed much -- the warm voice is still there, so
are the gray locks and beard that have become his trademark. A
bit fuller in the face, and of a portliness that the short jacket
could not altogether disguise.

Forgotten songs... actually, they weren't totally forgotten. I
might have remembered only Reuben James but then Kenny Rogers
delivered She Believes In Me and You Are So Beautiful To Me and
further unlocked the memory bank that's in all of us. Of course!
I remember that!

The songs he delivered were mostly about love and the
complications between him and her, and that, too, is a welcome
change from the harsh sounds and dubious lyrics that are the
speciality of today's rock groups.

Songs with jokes

Kenny Rogers interspersed his songs with jokes, addressing the
audience and urging them to regard the event "as one big karaoke
ball."

They needed very little encouragement, especially when he
began to "auction" songs, offering 100 bucks (American ones, that
is) to add to the charity box if anyone could remember the title
of any of the hits he sang.

He occasionally tossed what looked like pieces of paper
towards the audience, but sitting so far back I couldn't really
see whether they were genuine $100 bills.

Kenny sure didn't let his fans down, even those who had to
wait quite some time for the show to begin. I was told that it
was scheduled for 9 p.m. but the doors didn't open until about
9:45 p.m. for the section of the audience that had shelled out
the lowest-priced ticket, advertised at Rp 350,000.

The audience was divided in classes: VVIP, VIP, class 1, class
2 and theater. Dinner was included in the price (Rp 500,000 to Rp
1 million) for the four first categories, so the theater-class
audience had to wait until the end of feeding time before getting
a glimpse of their idol.

Kenny Rogers' formula isn't complicated. An established
framework, flexible enough to make adjustments according to the
demands of the times. The full-capacity audience that night of
course included those who have been fans ever since he emerged,
but there were also quite a number of young people tapping and
humming along just as enthusiastically as their elders.

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