Kenny Rogers died in 2020 at the age of 81.
A few days after he died, on my way back from a traipse in the local hills, I encountered a couple the female half of which suffers from Parkinson's. Being the over-clever fellow that I am, I asked her what condition her condition was in, thereby alluding to a curious '60s number. Her husband caught the allusion and hipped me to a fact hitherto unknown to me, namely, that the band in question, The First Edition, was headed by Kenny Rogers before he went country. He was quite the genre-hopper. Before the acid-rock tune. he sang with the New Christy Minstrels, a 'sanitized' and 'wholesome' collegiate folk outfit. Here is "Green Green" with upbeat Barry Maguire in the lead. This was before Maguire got all topical and protesty and dark with Eve of Destruction in the summer of '65.
I never listened to much Kenny Rogers, but of course I know and like his signature number, now a permanent bit of Americana that taps into the myths that move the red-blooded among us. I mean The Gambler:
And when he finished speakin'
He turned back toward the window
Crushed out his cigaretteAnd faded off to sleepAnd somewhere in the darkness
The gambler he broke even
But in his final words
I found an ace that I could keepYou've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to runYou never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done.
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