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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