Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is long time and the manager of
Speaker 1: Kenny Rogers, Ken Craigan, here to tell some Kenny Rogers tales.
Speaker 1: Jan How you do it? Just great, terrific sadly losing
Speaker 1: Kenny March. Since that time, there's been so much outpouring
Speaker 1: of love all of the world for him, it's quite heartening. Okay,
Speaker 1: So how did you meet Kenny? You know, I first
Speaker 1: met Kenny way way way back in the early sixties
Speaker 1: when I was managing I think probably the Smothers Brothers
Speaker 1: in those days, and I went to Houston and DJ
Speaker 1: there and his wife took me to a little jazz
Speaker 1: club and he was playing bass with a Bobby Doyle trio,
Speaker 1: and Uh, I was introduced to him. I didn't think
Speaker 1: anything of it at the time. Number of years went by.
Speaker 1: He joined the Christie Minstrels, the New Christie Minstrels, and
Speaker 1: I went on and was producing the Smothers Brothers comedy
Speaker 1: show and a lawyer kept calling me, called me six
Speaker 1: straight weeks and pushed me to go see a group
Speaker 1: at a club called Ledbetters in Westwood here and uh, finally,
Speaker 1: I was very busy with the show, and but I
Speaker 1: finally went down there and I just flipped for him.
Speaker 1: In fact, I brought Tommy Smothers the next night and
Speaker 1: within a week they were appearing on the Smothers Brothers
Speaker 1: Comedy Hour. Just because I'm interested in club history, tell
Speaker 1: me about Ledbetters. Where was it in Westwood? Lad Petters
Speaker 1: was on Westwood Boulevard And it was owned by the
Speaker 1: guy who was the head of the New Christie Minstrels.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I'm blanking on the name now, he's very
Speaker 1: well known U but but he had he owned that
Speaker 1: club and the first edition we're just playing there, and
Speaker 1: they were playing there for a couple of weeks, and
Speaker 1: I went in there almost every night for a while.
Speaker 1: They were runned by a gorgeous, gorgeous uh lady, young
Speaker 1: woman by the name of Thelma Camacho, and then other
Speaker 1: people in it. Kenny was playing stand up bass. He
Speaker 1: was quite a bit older than the other members. They
Speaker 1: had all left the New Christie Minstrels because Mike Settle,
Speaker 1: who was a writer, he couldn't get the Christie Minstrels
Speaker 1: to do any of his songs, so he formed this
Speaker 1: group from the Christie Minstrels, and they started singing songs
Speaker 1: that Mike had written. So you go to see them,
Speaker 1: and he get Tommy to come. How long after that
Speaker 1: till they get on the telecast probably a week We
Speaker 1: well we were a live show on you know, on
Speaker 1: Sunday nights. I mean well, when I say live, we taped.
Speaker 1: We taped and then went out. But uh, but it
Speaker 1: was kind of amazing. I mean literally a week later
Speaker 1: they were on the show. Everybody fell for them, and
Speaker 1: uh and more than one of us, uh fell for Thelma.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think she started dating Mason Williams, who
Speaker 1: was the writer on the show at the time. Of
Speaker 1: course we had classical gas later, right, Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: quite quite an era. Did they already have just dropped in?
Speaker 1: You know? I don't know. I think that came along later.
Speaker 1: They didn't. Mike didn't write it. Mike was with the
Speaker 1: group for the first year and a half or two,
Speaker 1: and then he left because his wife gave him an ultimatum.
Speaker 1: She said, either you know, you stay at home and
Speaker 1: we have a relationship here you're always on the road,
Speaker 1: or we don't have a marriage and I'm leaving. So
Speaker 1: I ran into him about a year or two later
Speaker 1: on in l A. And I said, Mike, so, how
Speaker 1: did it work out? I know, you know, he said, well,
Speaker 1: my wife and I we went for therapy, went for
Speaker 1: couples therapy. He said. I said, well, so did that work?
Speaker 1: He said, no, no, it didn't work. But boy did
Speaker 1: I get great ideas for songs, but he was left
Speaker 1: out of the first editions. Out of the first edition
Speaker 1: by that point, and the song how did you become
Speaker 1: the manager? You know? I started managing virtually right away.
Speaker 1: I had other clients. I had other clients at the time,
Speaker 1: although the Smothers were certainly the major one, and and
Speaker 1: I took them on, and they didn't have any real
Speaker 1: hits at that point. Their first album out wasn't out yet.
Speaker 1: They had they have a previous manager that you uh not,
Speaker 1: that took over phone because they had just come it
Speaker 1: hadn't been that long since they came out of the
Speaker 1: Christie Minstrels, and and so I I got to manage
Speaker 1: them right from the beginning. I remember one of the
Speaker 1: first things I booked for them was a little club
Speaker 1: in Boston and we went there and we would have
Speaker 1: like six or eight people was in a basement in
Speaker 1: Boston and we would have maybe six to eight people
Speaker 1: in the audience at night. And one of those nights
Speaker 1: that one of the smother shows that they taped was on.
Speaker 1: So I brought a TV set and put it on
Speaker 1: a stool on stage and the group came down into
Speaker 1: the audience, which doubled the audience by the way, and
Speaker 1: we all watched the show on the stage. It was
Speaker 1: very funny. But uh, but they you know, they didn't
Speaker 1: they started having a few hits. Throw a little bit
Speaker 1: slower than that. Okay, you have the act, you signed them,
Speaker 1: you put them on the Smothers Brothers show in that
Speaker 1: era of the sixties mid sixties. Did that immediately mean
Speaker 1: they had traction or did you were starting at the Actually, uh,
Speaker 1: it was you know, remember there were three networks we had.
Speaker 1: Um you know, Bonanza had been the number one show
Speaker 1: in America and we've been they've been shows have been
Speaker 1: for eight years. Trying to knock it off. CBS had
Speaker 1: tried everything and nothing worked, Absolutely nothing worked. So they
Speaker 1: threw our show on, figuring nothing was going to happen
Speaker 1: with it, and we exploded. And you know it was
Speaker 1: Vietnam and it was protesting, and it was young people,
Speaker 1: and we were all young and you know, I mean
Speaker 1: I was wearing beads and piece meals and long hair
Speaker 1: in those days, and and we related to that young
Speaker 1: audience out there. And all of a sudden the show
Speaker 1: became a big hit, and we literally knocked Bonanza out
Speaker 1: of number one and went to the number one show
Speaker 1: in the country every week and uh, and we had
Speaker 1: just great pieces on that show. I we were talking
Speaker 1: any other night about UH. We had a bit called
Speaker 1: have a Little Tea with Goldie and Um. She would
Speaker 1: come on each night and go and it was all
Speaker 1: drug references. But the network, despite the fact they censored
Speaker 1: the show highly, they never got the drug references. She
Speaker 1: opened her bit, uh with UM. She'd say, I want
Speaker 1: to agreet all you women the way I always do high,
Speaker 1: you know, and oh, I appreciate all of you sending
Speaker 1: me her old roaches that you've gathered around the house.
Speaker 1: Stuff like that. They would we get away with murder
Speaker 1: on it. We even put on the Smother show, which
Speaker 1: was getting from about the first end of the first
Speaker 1: couple of months, it started getting censored, or at least
Speaker 1: but a censored. The CBS guys would take the script
Speaker 1: and look at it and say, you can't say you
Speaker 1: can't say this. We would put four letter words in
Speaker 1: the script that we knew they were going to immediately
Speaker 1: knock out. And then they missed the next joke which
Speaker 1: which was a double, which had a double and dundre
Speaker 1: to it, and was kind of was what we really
Speaker 1: wanted to get across. It was like a fun game
Speaker 1: all the time up until the end. So you have this, uh,
Speaker 1: the Kenny Rogers and the first additional that was just
Speaker 1: called the first edition on the Smothers Brothers. Do they
Speaker 1: have a record deal at that point? Yes, they did
Speaker 1: at Warner Brothers. Uh. Terry Williams, one of the member's
Speaker 1: mother was working at Warner Brothers and and they got
Speaker 1: a deal at Warner Brothers. A producer and later went
Speaker 1: on to be very successful and they Mike Post came
Speaker 1: in produced some terrific songs for them, and songs started
Speaker 1: happening when they had that deal. That was before you
Speaker 1: got involved. Uh, yes, they had some kind of deal.
Speaker 1: I didn't make the deal at Warner Brothers. I remember
Speaker 1: we got the first album and they weren't happy with
Speaker 1: the cover and a lot of other stuff. It was
Speaker 1: almost you know, like the movie Spinal Tap, uh, you
Speaker 1: know when the group gets the album and hates it. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know that just dropped in certainly was the
Speaker 1: biggest break we got in those days, just just to
Speaker 1: go back. So Mike Post, who ultimately this is the
Speaker 1: same guy, became famous for writing all the TV themes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: all the themes for television shows, and it's what degree
Speaker 1: was an integral part of the success of I think
Speaker 1: he was a major success in those early days with
Speaker 1: the hits you know, Ruby, Don't Take Your Left to
Speaker 1: Town and and all of the various hits that came
Speaker 1: out of the first edition. Uh, in that early early
Speaker 1: period where Mike Post and and I do think it's
Speaker 1: funny you mentioned just dropped in. I think just dropped
Speaker 1: in to see what condition my condition is in is
Speaker 1: a perfect song for today. I love that record. First
Speaker 1: was aware of Kenny Rogers, but of course everybody then
Speaker 1: thought they were some kind of you know, super hip group,
Speaker 1: and they were as straight as an arrow, you know,
Speaker 1: in those days, they didn't touch anything, and that was
Speaker 1: a big hit on the on the East Coast. How
Speaker 1: did you make it a hit. You know, it's a
Speaker 1: good question. I think that record really made the group
Speaker 1: a hit more than we made that record hit. And
Speaker 1: many times over the years, I've worked radio very very hard. Um,
Speaker 1: I think the only thing we did basically to try
Speaker 1: and support records was travel and and and do shows
Speaker 1: all over the country and visit radio stations, and do
Speaker 1: you know, it was all radio at that point, UM
Speaker 1: and UM and I had there's a kind of a
Speaker 1: wild part of the story that you get a kick
Speaker 1: out of. When I first came out of Harvard Business
Speaker 1: School in the in nineteen sixty uh, I was managing
Speaker 1: a group called the Lime Lighters, and I took their
Speaker 1: record into a radio station, w b Z in Boston
Speaker 1: and the music director and the sort of librarian music
Speaker 1: director was Joe Smith. So by the time we got
Speaker 1: to the Warner Brothers deal, he you know, he and
Speaker 1: Mo Austin were the gold Dust Twins or the co
Speaker 1: the co heads of Warner Brothers Records. So I had
Speaker 1: a relationship there which was great. In fact, at one
Speaker 1: point I had five acts on their label that We're his.
Speaker 1: So uh just dropped in becomes a success and what's
Speaker 1: the next move? Well, the group starts playing concerts everywhere
Speaker 1: and doing very well for a few years, and one
Speaker 1: song after another, Ruben James I mentioned Ruby Don't Take
Speaker 1: Your Love to Town. The big change came about almost
Speaker 1: two years into it, or a year into the group
Speaker 1: um when Uh we had one record out that was
Speaker 1: doing okay on the charts and they wanted to put
Speaker 1: out it might have been Ruby, Uh and Kenny was
Speaker 1: lead lead vocalist. I don't remember the exact record, and
Speaker 1: I had a meeting at Warner Brothers with Moe and
Speaker 1: Joe and everybody there and decided that the best way
Speaker 1: to put the second record out was called Kenny Rodgers
Speaker 1: in the first edition for the second record, and that
Speaker 1: stuck because of that record went on to be a
Speaker 1: huge hit. So it was either Ruby or just dropped in.
Speaker 1: It was one of those, and the rest of the group,
Speaker 1: you know, they accepted it, although it wasn't. I mean,
Speaker 1: they didn't fight among each other ever really, but but
Speaker 1: I'm sure that Terry Williams and some of the others
Speaker 1: in the group felt a little bad at first that
Speaker 1: suddenly Kenny was the front guy, because you know, he
Speaker 1: was kind of he was the bass player and an
Speaker 1: older guy in the group, the oldest by by a
Speaker 1: long shot, trying by the way to look hip. He
Speaker 1: was in dark glasses and letting his hair grow and
Speaker 1: doing everything he could to look as him as possible.
Speaker 1: So how long did it run with the first edition?
Speaker 1: It runs to about nineteen seventy five, And I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: The last engagement was at Magic Mountain, very depressing for
Speaker 1: a group that had been drawing big audiences all over
Speaker 1: the world. Actually this is an amusement park in southern California. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, and that was they broke up right after that.
Speaker 1: H Kenny was at that point sixty five million dollars
Speaker 1: in debt, had gotten a divorce, was or at least
Speaker 1: it was in the process of it, and it was
Speaker 1: pretty downcast. However, he uh, you know, he had met
Speaker 1: Mary Ann, who was who became his wife. Ultimately he
Speaker 1: met her in Nashville doing he aw and he spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time in Nashville, and a manager from there,
Speaker 1: sort of a manager guy offered him, uh, what he
Speaker 1: offered him was seven fifty thousand dollars to come down
Speaker 1: there and let him manage it. H Kenny never saw
Speaker 1: but a fraction of that money, a very tiny bit
Speaker 1: of it, and it didn't That didn't work out, So
Speaker 1: he'd ultimately moved on from you. At the end of
Speaker 1: the first edition. Yeah, he left. I was kind of broke,
Speaker 1: and I went and joined Jerry Weintrop's office, and Kenny,
Speaker 1: in the meantime went to Nashville. So did the band
Speaker 1: blame You've, because usually the manager gets blamed when the
Speaker 1: band is not doing that well. I've I've rarely had that.
Speaker 1: I hate this, I mean not hate to say it.
Speaker 1: You lose artists because one of two reasons. You lose
Speaker 1: them because you didn't do a very good job and
Speaker 1: they're disgruntled and unhappy, or you lose him because you
Speaker 1: did a very good job and they think I don't
Speaker 1: need to be paying him all that money. I lost
Speaker 1: TRICI yearwo over that, over over how much I was making.
Speaker 1: She was making several times maybe ten times what I was,
Speaker 1: but she was I was making a commission of maybe
Speaker 1: fifty thousand at that point, almost a million. And you
Speaker 1: take a look at that. She was now with Garth,
Speaker 1: who felt he could pretty much advisor and and she
Speaker 1: just came to me one day and said, you're making
Speaker 1: almost as much money as I am, but she was
Speaker 1: looking at her net versus my gross and uh. And
Speaker 1: we parted over that, and I had done I think
Speaker 1: a pretty spectacular job for I've rarely lost anybody. I mean,
Speaker 1: Kenny I managed for thirty three years. Well, staying with Kenny,
Speaker 1: he goes to Nashville, it doesn't work out. How do
Speaker 1: the two of you look back up? I signed it
Speaker 1: with Jerry Windrab. I'm being handling Gosh the carpenters and
Speaker 1: Harry Chapin and and doing some work for John Denver,
Speaker 1: all Jerry's clients at a phenomenal company. And I get
Speaker 1: a call from Kenny from Nashville and he's left this
Speaker 1: guy and he suddenly wants my management back. I'm at Jerry's.
Speaker 1: I go to Jerry and Jerry says, forget it, he's
Speaker 1: washed up, he's nothing that's going to happen with him.
Speaker 1: Don't sign him. But I signed him over Jerry's objection,
Speaker 1: which lady really backfires on Jerry because Kenny, who never
Speaker 1: forgets that Jerry didn't want him. Uh, And I don't
Speaker 1: quite I doubt if I told him that, but somehow
Speaker 1: he found that out. Anyway, I signed him and I
Speaker 1: put him out on the road with the carpet with
Speaker 1: the captain and to Nil and it's really interesting what
Speaker 1: happens because they give him ten fifteen feet in front
Speaker 1: of the curtain to perform. Now, remember he's been part
Speaker 1: of a group that's been very big at one point,
Speaker 1: and he calls me and he says, I'm so discouraged.
Speaker 1: You know, I go out there. They really want the
Speaker 1: headliner that you know, I'm stout there as a solo artist.
Speaker 1: I just think I'm gonna quit this. I think I'm
Speaker 1: gonna stop. And I spend you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: how much time him an hour or something, really pumping
Speaker 1: him up and talking to him and keeping him going.
Speaker 1: And he stays in it. And one of the things
Speaker 1: it does is tremendously influenced him later on when he
Speaker 1: takes artists such as Garth Brooks on the road, and
Speaker 1: Garth actually talked about this recently on a tribute to Kenny.
Speaker 1: When Kenny takes artists on the road, he gives him
Speaker 1: the full stage, everything I want to work with, all
Speaker 1: the lighting, everything. He does everything he can to make
Speaker 1: them feel as much at home at as much a
Speaker 1: star as he possibly can. And I think it came
Speaker 1: from the way he felt with Captain and Taniel. I
Speaker 1: don't think that Captain Teneo really ever thought anything about it.
Speaker 1: They probably didn't realize how it affected him, but it
Speaker 1: but hey, then you know, he runs into Larry Butler
Speaker 1: in Nashville in the pancake pantry and they he goes
Speaker 1: to his office later and they make a deal for
Speaker 1: a record. Okay, tell us to Larry. Tell us about
Speaker 1: Larry Butler. Larry Butler is a producer who did Johnny Cash,
Speaker 1: a whole slew of top artists, um uh, and he
Speaker 1: was a very very prolific producer. And they record sixteen
Speaker 1: songs together and they send them to me. I'm now
Speaker 1: working at Jerry wide Drops office, and he has a
Speaker 1: whole promotion department of his own music guys that go
Speaker 1: out and promote the records with radio. And we all
Speaker 1: sit in the conference room, on the floor of the
Speaker 1: conference room listening to these sixteen songs, and we get
Speaker 1: to one called Lucille, and we really crack up. We're
Speaker 1: literally rolling around the floor going this is crazy, this
Speaker 1: is and I said, this is either you know, a
Speaker 1: dud as a novelty song or it's the biggest hit
Speaker 1: he could have, and sure enough it turns out and
Speaker 1: by the way, it was the name of his mother
Speaker 1: when it's and what he didn't write it, and his
Speaker 1: mother got upset because you know, it's uh, it's about
Speaker 1: leaving her husband and and the crop and the with
Speaker 1: the four kids and the crop in the field, you know,
Speaker 1: and stuff. And he says, why did you do that
Speaker 1: about me? This isn't my life. I never did that.
Speaker 1: She had eight kids. But anyway, it goes on to
Speaker 1: be a number one record, he wins, he wins the
Speaker 1: song of the Year on the c m A Awards.
Speaker 1: Um it becomes the real song that kicked him off. However,
Speaker 1: I will say I tried to get the record company
Speaker 1: to release it first off of those sixteen songs he'd recorded,
Speaker 1: and they didn't. They released one or two others before
Speaker 1: they went to Lucille. They all just felt that Lucille
Speaker 1: was was, you know, not going to make it, that
Speaker 1: it was too unusual and different a song. But boy,
Speaker 1: it resonated and it it kicked the career into high gear.
Speaker 1: It was you know, Gambler coming along later kicked it higher.
Speaker 1: But and a lot of other things we did, which
Speaker 1: we can talk about. But but Lucille, Okay, so Lucille,
Speaker 1: now what record label is this? This becomes Liberty. I
Speaker 1: believe we're on at that point part of the E
Speaker 1: M I M. Yeah, part of E M I. Because
Speaker 1: then Jim Maza came in and headed Capital, which owned
Speaker 1: E M I, or at bought M E E M
Speaker 1: I and so it um. But we start having hits
Speaker 1: then and and one after the other. But the big
Speaker 1: big moment for Kenny really was that Larry Butler had
Speaker 1: recorded The Gambler, a John Schlitz song. Don was in
Speaker 1: twenty three years old and had written a bunch of
Speaker 1: songs that didn't go anywhere, and one of his friends
Speaker 1: told him, Gee, you really should develop that one about
Speaker 1: the Gambler, and he did, and Cash recorded it but
Speaker 1: didn't like it that well, and so Larry, feeling Cash
Speaker 1: wasn't going to put it out, recorded it with Kenny.
Speaker 1: After Kenny made it an enormous hit, it was Catch
Speaker 1: wasn't very happy that it hadn't come out. But although
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash was a great guy to him, well, uh,
Speaker 1: but you know, the Gambler really established Kenny and and
Speaker 1: it did it for a bunch of reasons. One, he
Speaker 1: looked the part. He fitted it. It felt, you know,
Speaker 1: he felt like he was singing about himself almost and
Speaker 1: h and we got an album covered done by a
Speaker 1: fabulous photographer named Reed Miles, who h was sort of
Speaker 1: the Norman Rockwell of the photo photographers. He would bring
Speaker 1: in actors and put them around on artist and he
Speaker 1: brought it. You know, The Gambler was based like in
Speaker 1: the eight hundreds of the way Reid saw it, and
Speaker 1: he put it Kenny as the dealer in the midst
Speaker 1: of this cast of characters. And that album cover was
Speaker 1: just sensationally good. And the song, of course, I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got to know when to hold him. You've got
Speaker 1: to know when to fold him. You gotta know when
Speaker 1: to walk away, you gotta know when to run resonated
Speaker 1: even to this day, people use it all the time,
Speaker 1: even to this day. Uh and uh. And then of
Speaker 1: course we went on to make these huge movies. So
Speaker 1: tell us how the movies came about. Well, that's a
Speaker 1: fun story. Kenny had gotten pretty big with all the
Speaker 1: other stuff, including The Gambler, and he was now hosting
Speaker 1: the Country Music Awards, the CMA Awards, from Nashville and
Speaker 1: at rehearsal the day before the awards, two of the
Speaker 1: top guys from CBS who happened to buy movies of
Speaker 1: the week for the network, one being Fred Rappaport blanked
Speaker 1: on the name of the other guy. They were sitting
Speaker 1: in the green room with me while Kenny was out rehearsing,
Speaker 1: and I had a poster of the cover of The Gambler.
Speaker 1: Now you have to understand, I've never made a movie before.
Speaker 1: Kenny had acted in one in some small part. Uh,
Speaker 1: we had no experience, really, And I am really rolled
Speaker 1: this poster, this big, huge poster like a movie poster,
Speaker 1: and said we want to make this as a movie.
Speaker 1: And the two guys sitting on the couch looked at
Speaker 1: me and went sold, wouldn't you love to be able
Speaker 1: to do that today? I've got We've got I've got
Speaker 1: two projects out right now, and you have to go
Speaker 1: through all kinds of hoops to get them made. But
Speaker 1: but that it did take six months more to negotiate
Speaker 1: a deal. But by that fall we were we were
Speaker 1: out there making that movie in October and it went
Speaker 1: on in November literally and uh went through the roof.
Speaker 1: It became the highest rated movie in history on television,
Speaker 1: highest rated movie four television Movie of the Week was
Speaker 1: a two hour version. But as a result of that,
Speaker 1: as a result of that one success where we got
Speaker 1: like a fifty two share in a thirty five rating,
Speaker 1: you know, unbelievable numbers nowadays except for Super Bowls and
Speaker 1: other things like that. When we got these huge numbers,
Speaker 1: we CBS got us to make four mini series after that,
Speaker 1: and we did so, we did a total of eighteen
Speaker 1: hours of Gamblers and uh it, you know, was just
Speaker 1: and the second one was bigger than the first one
Speaker 1: and it was a mini series. So I mean that
Speaker 1: really established Kenny, you know, much like Dolly got established
Speaker 1: with nine to five on a higher level, Kenny got
Speaker 1: established with his films before well before nine to five,
Speaker 1: Kenny was very established and one of the few country
Speaker 1: stars at that time as far as I know, to
Speaker 1: ever take that kind of leap into that huge success.
Speaker 1: Certainly nobody else had that kind of success. And I
Speaker 1: had a lot of fun with that boy. Every promotional
Speaker 1: tool in my toolbook toolbox came out for promoting the Gambler.
Speaker 1: Give us, give us some examples. Well, you know, we
Speaker 1: were on the cover of TV Guy. We were and
Speaker 1: we had we did posters that were ever we treated
Speaker 1: it like a feature film. Uh you know, I have
Speaker 1: that whole belief, which I think I've been on your
Speaker 1: show and talked about before about the magic of three's.
Speaker 1: I had didn't realize that it was a real technique
Speaker 1: at that point, but I would surround anything with so
Speaker 1: many different promotional things, from radio calls and promotion contests, advertising,
Speaker 1: get the network to spend a lot of money on
Speaker 1: the advertising. Piece of work closely with them on all
Speaker 1: of those aspects. I even, by the way, on all
Speaker 1: my films and all my TV shows, I've always shot
Speaker 1: the stills. There's been a network film you know photographer
Speaker 1: there too. But I know exactly what I want to
Speaker 1: promote with. So I would go out and I love
Speaker 1: taking pictures, and I would take pictures through the whole time,
Speaker 1: give them back to the Smothers Brothers show. I took
Speaker 1: put pictures every week, printed up the best ones and
Speaker 1: sent them to the people who appeared on our show
Speaker 1: in a leather bound book. Um, you know, I just
Speaker 1: it was just part of my part of what I did.
Speaker 1: I always felt of the job was making the film
Speaker 1: still feel his way is promoting it. So how did
Speaker 1: Canny handle all this success? That's the great thing about
Speaker 1: Kenny rodgers um Interestingly, he would never get too high
Speaker 1: and never get too low. He was the most even
Speaker 1: guy that I ever knew. Changed a little later in life,
Speaker 1: but not that much, but until to the last couple
Speaker 1: of years. But we talked about that later. But in fact,
Speaker 1: Kenny had this ability to just stay sort of level.
Speaker 1: You know. I think one of the reasons that Gambler
Speaker 1: is so successful is much like Kenny himself, the character
Speaker 1: doesn't take himself too seriously. There's a lot of fun
Speaker 1: in that in the movies, and my favorite film always
Speaker 1: was Butch and Sundance, So I I think maybe although
Speaker 1: I didn't write the script, I think I pushed for
Speaker 1: that kind of humor to go through it along with
Speaker 1: you know, whatever the whatever, the threat wash my face.
Speaker 1: I always think the best films are ones that combine
Speaker 1: something you can laugh at or be amused by with
Speaker 1: with the tension of an ongoing you know thriller. Okay,
Speaker 1: So at this level of success, are you worried about overexposure? Well,
Speaker 1: I got a lot of flak for that kind of
Speaker 1: thing I did, uh, And yet I just didn't worry
Speaker 1: about it as long as we kept changing. That's the
Speaker 1: one thing I've always done in my career is find
Speaker 1: what is the real person, what their interests are, and
Speaker 1: find ways to make those work. I remember living in
Speaker 1: john when she got pregnant. I remember telling her, do
Speaker 1: an album of U of lullabies, and after the baby
Speaker 1: is born, you can go on TV and talk about
Speaker 1: how you put your kid together to sleep with the lullabies,
Speaker 1: and you've got an album of him so other people
Speaker 1: can do it. And she said, by god, you're the
Speaker 1: only guy I know made getting pregnant a career event.
Speaker 1: But I would do that with Kenny. He was a
Speaker 1: phenomenal photographer, I mean world class, and you know we
Speaker 1: we put his pictures up in New York and in
Speaker 1: uh film galleries, I mean in this you know, art galleries,
Speaker 1: and Time magazine covered it and we did. Uh. He
Speaker 1: was a terrific tennis player and ended up actually getting
Speaker 1: ranked as a doubles player, traveled with a pro who
Speaker 1: later became one of his best friends, and anything he
Speaker 1: did and I and I saw an interview the other
Speaker 1: day with him about that. He said The one thing
Speaker 1: I seemed to be able to do is uh, and
Speaker 1: is focus totally. Uh. It's a combination of focus and
Speaker 1: being addictive, you know, if photography was it. He had
Speaker 1: a dark room and he was in there. In fact,
Speaker 1: he had vocal trouble as a result of the used
Speaker 1: working so much in a dark room with the chemicals. Uh,
Speaker 1: and he had to stop doing that. And of course
Speaker 1: later on everything became digital. But each whatever. His passion
Speaker 1: was golf. I mean, you know, he bought a place
Speaker 1: in Athens, Georgia, uh, and he built it was about
Speaker 1: acres and he built a golf course that looked like
Speaker 1: Augusta with lakes and bridges and everything. And he had
Speaker 1: pros come down there and play it. And not only
Speaker 1: did they come and play it, but he had a
Speaker 1: thing that would pick could dig up trees or create
Speaker 1: soundtraps while you were at lunch, so where he'd see
Speaker 1: where they were. Yeah, I know, it's typical where he'd
Speaker 1: see where everybody was hitting when you came back out
Speaker 1: after lunch to play. And this was a lot of
Speaker 1: times with pros. He he had moved things around on
Speaker 1: the course. It wasn't the same course you just played
Speaker 1: in the morning. Uh he just you know, anything he did,
Speaker 1: he did it classy, first rate. He built houses, he
Speaker 1: did all the planning and decoration. He you know, he
Speaker 1: nailed up stuff himself and worked on the on the
Speaker 1: walls and unbelievable. He was completely dedicated to whatever his
Speaker 1: passion was at that moment in time. And by the way,
Speaker 1: if it was a woman, he was completely dedicated there.
Speaker 1: You could would be on the set saying quick making
Speaker 1: calls to Marianne and you know, and we got to
Speaker 1: get you back to work. I mean literally, whatever he
Speaker 1: was focused on, he was truly focused well staying with
Speaker 1: the women. He was married multiple times, five times. Why
Speaker 1: do you think that was Well, the first one was
Speaker 1: one of those. Had to get married. He felt he
Speaker 1: got a woman pregnant while he was in high school,
Speaker 1: I believe, and he felt the honorable thing he was
Speaker 1: living in Houston, Texas was to marry her, and he
Speaker 1: did and that didn't last long. But they had a
Speaker 1: kid and and he didn't see that kid for like
Speaker 1: eighteen years because they after they broke up and uh,
Speaker 1: finally finally got back together. It was quite a reunion.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, he got married again. And had Kenny Jr.
Speaker 1: A very funny, clever young man. Uh and Uh. And
Speaker 1: then when that marriage broke up, Um he met Mary
Speaker 1: Anne and they had what had been that one of
Speaker 1: his longest marriages at that point. She was still even
Speaker 1: to this day. I mean, she loved Kenny greatly even
Speaker 1: after they divorced, and she worried about him, and she,
Speaker 1: like a year ago she called me and said, he's
Speaker 1: kind of down because he doesn't work. Now we've got
Speaker 1: to do something for his birthday. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: his ex wife. She was wonderful about it. And then
Speaker 1: he eventually met um a much younger woman, Wanda, Uh, gorgeous,
Speaker 1: beautiful twin, and they had twins. And now there are
Speaker 1: sons that I think around thirteen or fourteen years old
Speaker 1: UM with Wanda, and that's one of the shames of
Speaker 1: Kenny passing away. But they're certainly given getting to see
Speaker 1: I mean, there have been at least five beautes to
Speaker 1: Kenny in the last two weeks. Um. The sons are
Speaker 1: at least going to have this great legacy to know
Speaker 1: what a sensational person their father was. So why do
Speaker 1: you think do you have a laundering eye or why
Speaker 1: did these relationships always end? You know, it's very hard
Speaker 1: to keep these relationships going when you're on the road
Speaker 1: full time. I've learned a lot about the road because
Speaker 1: I've toured speaking an awful lot, and it's almost it's
Speaker 1: a performance what I do. And uh, and you go
Speaker 1: back to your hotel room alone and it's lonely and such.
Speaker 1: And for the first several years with mary Anne, she
Speaker 1: traveled with him, and then they had Christopher, their son,
Speaker 1: and she stayed home. And when she stayed home, Um,
Speaker 1: he eventually I think had a relationship with one of
Speaker 1: the women that was touring with him. Uh, and it
Speaker 1: kind of broke up their marriage. Uh, But but they
Speaker 1: stayed extremely close, you know, with a son that they
Speaker 1: both cared a great deal about. Um. Kenny was I
Speaker 1: have to say, I mean, Kenny was one of the
Speaker 1: most generous human beings I've ever known in every way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. And he maintained relationship Marianne was married
Speaker 1: when he knew or to a fellow named Michael true Killis,
Speaker 1: and he felt after Marianne left Michael to Mary Kenny,
Speaker 1: he felt obligated and they became very good friends. He
Speaker 1: even had Michael produce a movie. He just was that
Speaker 1: kind of guy. The band and the crew was with
Speaker 1: him for forty or fifty years, the same group. Uh
Speaker 1: he he. You know, he was just one of those
Speaker 1: people that cared about taking care of others and and
Speaker 1: I think we have to remember that part of him.
Speaker 1: The other part of him, of course, is to remember
Speaker 1: the humor. I love one story. After things were slowing down,
Speaker 1: he called me one day and he said, you know, Ken,
Speaker 1: I feel like we're two old salmon's swimming up the
Speaker 1: stream against the water and we're having a very tough
Speaker 1: time of it. And I said, no, no, no, Kenny.
Speaker 1: You know, my theory is, it's like a small plane.
Speaker 1: You know, if you get up to one mile, it
Speaker 1: has a glade range of ten miles. So even if
Speaker 1: you turn off the engine, you're going to glide for
Speaker 1: ten miles. But you get up to five miles, and
Speaker 1: now you turn off the engine, you glide for fifty miles,
Speaker 1: or if you're ten miles, you've glide for a hundred.
Speaker 1: I said, Kenny. The plane you're on is up so
Speaker 1: high that even after you die, you're gonna last You're
Speaker 1: gonna be around for a long That plane isn't going
Speaker 1: to hit the ground for a long time after that,
Speaker 1: and there was silence on the other end of the phone,
Speaker 1: and he said to me, you know, Ken, I think
Speaker 1: I'm planning on living a lot longer than you think.
Speaker 1: There's so many moment He was that kind of guy,
Speaker 1: and he and you know when he and Dolly. I
Speaker 1: have so many great stories of Kenny with Dolly. And
Speaker 1: when Kenny and Dolly first got together. I was managing
Speaker 1: the bags at that point, and Barry Gibb wrote an
Speaker 1: album for Kenny and they were working. But Barry's way
Speaker 1: of working. Kenny recorded the entire Gambler album in three days.
Speaker 1: That's the way they worked in Nashville. You went in,
Speaker 1: you cut four or five songs that night, you went
Speaker 1: back home, you went there the next night, you cut
Speaker 1: some more, and eventually you had an album. And you know,
Speaker 1: in those days, you could only put ten songs or
Speaker 1: eleven on an album. He had an album. Barry was taken,
Speaker 1: you know, weeks to do one song and they had
Speaker 1: been working on Islands in the stream to the point
Speaker 1: where Kenny hated it. He just said, I'm so bored
Speaker 1: with this song and I don't like it. That much
Speaker 1: and everything. And I think it was Barry said we've
Speaker 1: got to get somebody. Why don't we get Dolly Parton?
Speaker 1: And I was sitting in the studio and they looked
Speaker 1: at me and said, get Dolly. Well. I knew Sandy Gallant,
Speaker 1: who managed Dolly very well, and I knew Dolly. We
Speaker 1: we had we had never done anything with her. But
Speaker 1: I picked up the phone called Sandy and with an
Speaker 1: hour Dolly was in the studio recording with Kenny. But
Speaker 1: what really miss and I think it's one of the
Speaker 1: great things I didn't do in my life, was I
Speaker 1: didn't have film what was going on in that studio
Speaker 1: because those two were cracking everybody up every two minutes.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's practically nobody funnier than Dolly, improvolving, impressing,
Speaker 1: I can't say it, um and um. And they just
Speaker 1: were completely cracking us up. And it was the beginning
Speaker 1: of this phenomenal relationship. And I can give you great
Speaker 1: example of Dolly in her humor that I think you
Speaker 1: really enjoy. I took Kenny and Dolly. I took actually
Speaker 1: Lionel to Australia, flew back on a twenty four hour
Speaker 1: turnaround and took Kenny and Dolly down there. Both acts
Speaker 1: were touring Australia and when we got when we arrived
Speaker 1: with Kenny and Dolly, there was a press conference and
Speaker 1: was I think or maybe two in that period of time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it was when the Americ's Cup, the sailing uh contest
Speaker 1: was going on in Australia and Uh the new the
Speaker 1: media at this press conference said Ms. Parton, what do
Speaker 1: you think of the America's Cup? And she stood out,
Speaker 1: stood up, thrust out her chest and said, but I
Speaker 1: am America's Cups. Well, the whole place cracked up. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing. The next day. The next day the
Speaker 1: head like front page, the huge picture of Dolly with
Speaker 1: her chest threw us out and the line I am
Speaker 1: America's Cups huge headline down below in the story. Kenny
Speaker 1: got one little, tiny paragraph and he was a bigger
Speaker 1: deal there. We we had to her there before and
Speaker 1: been big and Dolly got all the media. I mean,
Speaker 1: she did that to us over and over and over.
Speaker 1: She's one of the funniest ladies and fortunately still still
Speaker 1: doing it, you know, and and and entertaining people to
Speaker 1: this a I think they're going to do another nine
Speaker 1: to five movie, by the way, she and so how
Speaker 1: do you end up getting? Uh? The Gibbs involved were
Speaker 1: very GiB involved with Kenny. You know. Somehow we ended
Speaker 1: up taking them on. I don't know who contacted us
Speaker 1: about that, but they were brought to me. You know,
Speaker 1: in the mid eighties, I had eighteen months where I
Speaker 1: had forty eight percent of the top ten records in
Speaker 1: America were my artists, people like Kim Carnes, Kenny Rogers,
Speaker 1: Linel Ritchie, Lindsey Buckingham, the Jay Giles Band, uh and
Speaker 1: uh and so over an eighteen month period, I had
Speaker 1: of the top ten records in Billboard, so number one.
Speaker 1: That put me on the map. Then I did We
Speaker 1: Are the World, which Kenny of course participated in Evaly
Speaker 1: and hands crossed America somewhere in that period. After We
Speaker 1: Are the World, Uh, the Bigs came to us. You know,
Speaker 1: things have quiet and down quite a bit for them.
Speaker 1: I flew down to Florida and met with him. We
Speaker 1: took them on. We never got a lot going, but
Speaker 1: they ended up Uh, we ended up having some fun
Speaker 1: times with them and uh, and they ended up recording
Speaker 1: with Kenny and other things. How did that come together.
Speaker 1: How did they get hooked up with Kenny? Because I
Speaker 1: was representing him and Kenny was. You know, he had
Speaker 1: gotten Lionel to do Lady for him, which was wonderful
Speaker 1: and one of his biggest help. That happened because Jim
Speaker 1: Mazy was running the record company, running Capitol and then
Speaker 1: and Live and overseeing Liberty h Kenny went to him
Speaker 1: because Kenny had number one records on the pop on
Speaker 1: the pop charts as well as the country charts, but
Speaker 1: the only other chart in those days was the R
Speaker 1: and B chart. So Kenny said to Jim, I want
Speaker 1: to get a number one record on the R and
Speaker 1: bea chart And Jim said, well, there's only one guy
Speaker 1: who ought to write at He's a group called the
Speaker 1: Commodore is in its Lionel Ritchie and either Kenny was
Speaker 1: appearing in Vegas or Lionel was. I've heard the story
Speaker 1: both ways. Uh. But they got together in Las Vegas
Speaker 1: and Lionel, as he tells the story, um, he had
Speaker 1: a song he called Baby and but in typical of Lionel,
Speaker 1: he did this when he wrote We Are the World,
Speaker 1: he only had that word and music for the song.
Speaker 1: So Kenny said, I want to get a song, but
Speaker 1: Kenny had been talking. The way Lionel tells the story,
Speaker 1: he says, Kenny had been constantly talking about what a
Speaker 1: great lady mary Anne was, and I heard the story.
Speaker 1: Marianne was along with him, but he kept talking about Marianne.
Speaker 1: And finally he said, Lionel, what do you have in
Speaker 1: the way of a song? And Lionel, thinking on his feet,
Speaker 1: said I've got this song Lady, which is of course Baby,
Speaker 1: that he had already written the music for, but add
Speaker 1: no lyrics, and he sang baby, Da Da Da Da
Speaker 1: da dad and played it. Kenny said, where's the rest
Speaker 1: of it? He said, don't worry. When we get ready accorded,
Speaker 1: I'll have it. And Kenny said, okay, we'll do it,
Speaker 1: and they went in the studio. It did much like
Speaker 1: Barry's recording of Kenny. It drove Kenny a little nuts
Speaker 1: because Lionel was used to even taking more time. I mean,
Speaker 1: Kenny said, you know, with Lionel, you'd record a single note.
Speaker 1: If he didn't like the way the note sounded, you
Speaker 1: do the note over and over. So it was quite
Speaker 1: an experience. But Lady was a phenomenal record for Kenny
Speaker 1: and Lionel does it in the show. Now. So, having
Speaker 1: all this success with the Gambler, with Islands in the
Speaker 1: Stream and now with Leady, how do you keep it going?
Speaker 1: You keep it going by diversifying, doing different things, finding
Speaker 1: you ways, you know, making all of a sudden, getting
Speaker 1: a lot of coverages of him as a photographer and
Speaker 1: so on. And it started to slow down as we
Speaker 1: got into the nineties. You know, he wasn't having I
Speaker 1: think seven was his last number one album on the
Speaker 1: country charts and uh and or even maybe it was
Speaker 1: a single at that point. And we tried. We we
Speaker 1: did get uh a few things through the nineties, but
Speaker 1: mostly we started touring a lot around the world. I
Speaker 1: was amazed how much following he had, not just in
Speaker 1: English making countries that how much success he had, uh,
Speaker 1: but in the English countries, you know, New Zealand where
Speaker 1: he was like a superstar, Australia, uh, South Africa, which
Speaker 1: we got criticized for for playing uh like a lot
Speaker 1: of other artists who signed did it naively as we
Speaker 1: were um. Uh. We did a lot of touring, you know,
Speaker 1: we did the Muppets in England, we did uh. You
Speaker 1: just you you constantly looked for angles and new things.
Speaker 1: I never got involved in the writing of the music,
Speaker 1: but if you give me the song, I figured out
Speaker 1: a way. I mean, by the time the late nineties
Speaker 1: we had we we suddenly had new new success. He
Speaker 1: did a song called the Greatest and it was about
Speaker 1: a little boy in a baseball bat and a baseball
Speaker 1: and the kid throws the ball up in the air
Speaker 1: and swings once and misses, and it doesn't discourage him,
Speaker 1: and he picks the ball up, and he throws it
Speaker 1: up again, and he swings and misses, and finally he
Speaker 1: takes the ball for the third time and he throws
Speaker 1: it up in the air and he swings and he misses,
Speaker 1: and his mom calls him in for dinner, and as
Speaker 1: he's walking into dinner, he says, I never knew I
Speaker 1: was the greatest pitcher on earth anyway. Uh, it's a Kenny.
Speaker 1: That's the gist of the song. It's more elaborate than that.
Speaker 1: What I did was I took Kenny to ballparks to
Speaker 1: open the season in all the different ballparks. The song
Speaker 1: came out in April or the late at late March
Speaker 1: early April, and and different teams had different opening days
Speaker 1: or sometimes we meant more than one park in a day.
Speaker 1: And he did not that he didn't like doing the
Speaker 1: national anthem, but he do America the Beautiful or something,
Speaker 1: and he do the song. And we launched it by
Speaker 1: going around and touring ballparks and also by making hundreds
Speaker 1: of calls to radio. Both what he did with radio
Speaker 1: and I literally became I was very very I had
Speaker 1: been president of the Country Music Association and then of
Speaker 1: the Academy of Country Music, which is based out here
Speaker 1: in l A. And I made hundreds of radio calls
Speaker 1: and I did that not just on Kenny. I did
Speaker 1: it on my other artists as well. But there weren't
Speaker 1: managers calling radio, and radio was still the thing then.
Speaker 1: We hadn't gotten to the period of streaming and getting
Speaker 1: your music from Spotif the Greatest becomes a big success,
Speaker 1: how do you capitalize out? Pretty good, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: go top ten, it does it becomes a success, it
Speaker 1: stops somewhere in the teens, you know, fifteen or sixteen
Speaker 1: something like that, my recollection, But it's still a hit
Speaker 1: for him, and the biggest hit he's had in a
Speaker 1: number of years. And we follow it with a song
Speaker 1: he found called by Me a Rose, and that song
Speaker 1: UH really hits home, particularly with women. And so I'll
Speaker 1: remember what happened with it again. You give me the song,
Speaker 1: I'll find a way to promote it. I was driving home.
Speaker 1: I somehow knew Mary Ann Williamson, who was producing the
Speaker 1: and I may get the name run because there's two
Speaker 1: ladies like that, the one who was producing the show. Um,
Speaker 1: oh God, what touched by an Angel? And uh? And
Speaker 1: I from my car. I played the song for her
Speaker 1: and her staff in a meeting in Salt Lake where
Speaker 1: they were where they were doing the filming. And I
Speaker 1: played it on the air and they loved it, and
Speaker 1: and I convinced them to do an episode based around
Speaker 1: by Me a Rose and Kenny guests start on it.
Speaker 1: And the day after that aired, we sold tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of singles and the record became a number one
Speaker 1: hit for him. Was the one of the last big
Speaker 1: hits he had. Of course, he also had a pretty
Speaker 1: good hit not that long ago in the in the
Speaker 1: two thousand, I don't know thirteen or whenever it was,
Speaker 1: he and Dolly had a hit with the Old Friends,
Speaker 1: a song that again that Don Schlitz wrote for him.
Speaker 1: So was Kenny good or bad with money? I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say good. He liked to spend it. He was good
Speaker 1: if you want to look at the things he acquired,
Speaker 1: from office buildings to beach houses, to the ranch in
Speaker 1: Georgia to UH to UH two or three different airplanes,
Speaker 1: a helicopter. UM. I remember flying Tommy Lessort at one
Speaker 1: time on Kenny's helicopter from from Atlanta, Georgia to Philadelphia
Speaker 1: where he had to be and he was forever our
Speaker 1: buddy and our friend for doing that. He had to
Speaker 1: get there. Um. But Kenny knew how to spend it
Speaker 1: in wonderful ways. He had great taste. UH. He once
Speaker 1: had an airplane size of a seven twenty seven that
Speaker 1: had a round bed in the as you walked in,
Speaker 1: and there was a glass enclosed area that you could
Speaker 1: put curtains around, and there was a bed in it,
Speaker 1: and then you could see like twenty people behind that
Speaker 1: in the in the two compartments behind it. He went
Speaker 1: all the way up to that, and then in the
Speaker 1: latter years he worked his way all the way back
Speaker 1: down to the touring bus. By the way, he bought
Speaker 1: a touring bus for his mom that was funny. You
Speaker 1: know his mom, she he said, what do you want?
Speaker 1: He she said, I want a bus so I can
Speaker 1: go on tour with you. So we bought her a bus.
Speaker 1: Us went on the bus everywhere. It was great. But he,
Speaker 1: you know, he knew how to spend it at the
Speaker 1: same time, he also knew how to make it. But
Speaker 1: it made him work. I mean, as a manager, that's
Speaker 1: a dream. Because he's working like crazy. You don't have
Speaker 1: to push him to get out there. Uh And and
Speaker 1: money was never has never been my motivator anyway. But
Speaker 1: but from a standpoint of an easy client, here was
Speaker 1: one who basically to support his lifestyle, had to work
Speaker 1: hard and uh and never never grouched about it. He
Speaker 1: loved it. In fact, if I look at one thing,
Speaker 1: I believe Lionel and I talked about this. The night
Speaker 1: that I heard Kenny had died. I called Lionel at
Speaker 1: midnight and we talked for quite a while. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that Kenny loved from a team being on
Speaker 1: the road. You know, when you're out there, you get
Speaker 1: that adulation every night, and and when it suddenly stops,
Speaker 1: when you suddenly know that your health is such that
Speaker 1: you just can't go out anymore. It's got to be
Speaker 1: a tremendous blow. And Uh. In fact, Lionel and I
Speaker 1: talked about it. I said, Lionel, you've got to be
Speaker 1: prepared for that someday. He said, don't worry. I've I've
Speaker 1: thought about it. UM. But he's still going very strong. UM.
Speaker 1: And I think that the last two years after he
Speaker 1: was forced to um to stop touring, after a lifetime
Speaker 1: of that kind of adulation and and reaffirmation and fun,
Speaker 1: just the camaraderie of being out with the band, um,
Speaker 1: all the wonderful things he did on the road, taking
Speaker 1: cameras along huge he took an enormous camera that had
Speaker 1: to be carried by a couple of people in set
Speaker 1: up to do pictures that were like you know, Richard
Speaker 1: avedon types of things, and he was just quite amazing
Speaker 1: at that. And then to have it all kind of
Speaker 1: come stop, you know, crashing to a stop. Uh. Lionel
Speaker 1: and I kind of agreed that that was the start
Speaker 1: of the downhill part for Kenny and his hill and
Speaker 1: then he, you know, his health went on him. So
Speaker 1: you're in the office, would can he call you? Hey,
Speaker 1: I gotta work? Uh. It was pretty mutual. One of
Speaker 1: the things I loved about Kenny Rodgers is you could
Speaker 1: go in there with a list I would take. Uh.
Speaker 1: In those days, I wrote everything out. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: a calligrapher, so I wrote it out kind of fancy,
Speaker 1: and I wrote out a list, numbered list of things
Speaker 1: that I needed to get him to approve or agree to,
Speaker 1: or things that needed to be discussed. And it could
Speaker 1: be two pages long, legal sucks, but Kenny would go
Speaker 1: through them at lightning speed. Yeah, I'll do this. No, No,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do this. Oh what would Frank
Speaker 1: Sinatra do? Would Frank Sinatra do this? I don't think so. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that. Uh. That was one
Speaker 1: of his I heard that so often I can't believe it. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we would go down the list. If he said he
Speaker 1: was going to do it, you could count on. You
Speaker 1: could absolutely count that if Kenny Rodgers agree to come
Speaker 1: to your thing or do this, or sing on something
Speaker 1: or whatever it was, whatever it was, he would be there.
Speaker 1: He never would, never would back out, in which many
Speaker 1: artists do. Uh. You know, they want to say yes
Speaker 1: to everybody, but then they really turned to the manager
Speaker 1: and say get me out of this. That's the more
Speaker 1: common thing that happens all the time. And so he
Speaker 1: just did that. He was that kind of guy. And
Speaker 1: you know, I the one thing that hadn't been talked
Speaker 1: about enough, not not just by us, but by all
Speaker 1: these tributes to him and everything, is how generous he was.
Speaker 1: When I was managing Harry Chapin, and Harry was raising
Speaker 1: money for hunger and homeless issues in America and for
Speaker 1: a group called Long Island Cares UH and for a
Speaker 1: theater in in Long on Long Island and stuff. Kenny
Speaker 1: Lionel would raise money by going to your backyard and
Speaker 1: performing for a thousand dollars and put to give it
Speaker 1: to the charity, even though he made a lot more
Speaker 1: than that in concert, but not huge, even though he
Speaker 1: draw it drew very well. Uh, I said Lionel, I
Speaker 1: think it is Harry Chapin. I'm hope I get it
Speaker 1: right here. So Harry UH needed money, and Kenny did
Speaker 1: a concert in which he handed at the end of
Speaker 1: the concert, he handed Harry Chapin a hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: thousand dollar check. And Harry Chapin was a guy that
Speaker 1: you know, was always very loquacious and I said, I'd
Speaker 1: never seen Harry ever where he couldn't get a word out.
Speaker 1: He took that check, he looked at it. It would
Speaker 1: have taken him more than a year, maybe two, to
Speaker 1: raise that money for a chair with the charities he supported.
Speaker 1: And Kenny was handing him a hundred and eighty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars from one night. And it drove home a point
Speaker 1: that I made with Harry about how the bigger he got,
Speaker 1: the more good he could do, and we had to
Speaker 1: spend more time concentrating on the career. And that was
Speaker 1: really happening when just right when Harry got killed on
Speaker 1: the Long Island Expressway. But the minute Harry went down,
Speaker 1: Kenny picked up that torch. He created the Hunger Media Awards,
Speaker 1: gave put a million dollars into an account and gave
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand away every year to the media for
Speaker 1: covering the issues of hunger and homelessness. We did a
Speaker 1: big thing every year at the u N. It was
Speaker 1: just typical of Kenny. One time, after I mean his
Speaker 1: first got on my way to Lonald Richie's house to
Speaker 1: get him to work on the song, which turned out
Speaker 1: to be where Are the World? I picked up the phone,
Speaker 1: and the first person I called was Kenny Rogers, and
Speaker 1: he said, count me in whatever you're doing. Typical Okay, So,
Speaker 1: if you had a list of two pages legal pads,
Speaker 1: what percentage would he say yes to? You know, I
Speaker 1: don't remember the exact percentage, but it was generally yes
Speaker 1: more than no, maybe sixty forty. But there was this
Speaker 1: agreement that we had. We made an agreement somewhere along
Speaker 1: the line that if one of us felt passionately at something,
Speaker 1: doing it or not doing it, whatever, as long as
Speaker 1: we were really really passionate about it, the other person
Speaker 1: would go along with that decision. But he added, in
Speaker 1: typical Kenny Rogers fashion, but Ken, when I go along
Speaker 1: with what you want, you'd better be right. And were
Speaker 1: you ever wrong, sure, what would say? Well? I part
Speaker 1: of what I teach when I teach classes or speak
Speaker 1: to corporations is how to get caught telling the truth.
Speaker 1: And when I was wrong or when I made a mistake,
Speaker 1: which was more often than you know, that I would
Speaker 1: wish I would immediately admit it because what I was
Speaker 1: doing was building trust. I wanted to get caught when
Speaker 1: I did something that wasn't in my most my best interest,
Speaker 1: to admit because admitting it would strengthen my relationship with him.
Speaker 1: And I've taught that technique to people that you you
Speaker 1: tell the truth as a valuable tool. So sure, mean
Speaker 1: I made plenty of mistakes. I mean I'm not perfect
Speaker 1: by any means and and something, but most I will
Speaker 1: say this because Kenny could rise the occasion. This is
Speaker 1: another story about Kenny. Basically, Kenny Rodgers had the ability
Speaker 1: like Michael Jordan's two, raise his game when the game
Speaker 1: was on the line and score. He wanted the ball
Speaker 1: and he knew he could score, and he took his
Speaker 1: game up to do that. And um. And the great
Speaker 1: example of that is actually it was Kenny's uh fiftieth
Speaker 1: birthday and I live now right across from the golf
Speaker 1: course at Mountain Gate, and we arranged Kenny was an
Speaker 1: avid golfer, and we arranged for Kenny to play with
Speaker 1: Steve Win believe it or not, O. J. Simpson pre
Speaker 1: uh the Trial and Murder days Uh O J. Simpson,
Speaker 1: Steve Win and the golf pro We're playing a foursome
Speaker 1: with Kenny. I hid around the eighteenth hole a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty people behind rocks and trees and everything to
Speaker 1: jump out when he made the putt and yelled surprised.
Speaker 1: Except unfortunately they got my message wrong, and when he
Speaker 1: was about eighteen feet off the green, they jumped out
Speaker 1: everybody and yelled surprise. Now he calmly chipped to within
Speaker 1: about nine ft and sunk the putt. I looked at
Speaker 1: him and said, you got to join the tour. This
Speaker 1: kind of pressure really works. You know, it's so funny.
Speaker 1: I mean he uh, he could raise whatever it was.
Speaker 1: You listened to his duets when he had somebody's terrific
Speaker 1: singing with him, like Sheena Easton or or Dottie West
Speaker 1: who he did drunks, and they're certainly with Dolly Parton.
Speaker 1: I saw her on an interview the other night say
Speaker 1: he was just warming up with all those other women
Speaker 1: waiting to get to me. And and uh when he
Speaker 1: would raise his he loved singing duets with with talented singers, uh,
Speaker 1: because he would then need to lift his game to
Speaker 1: match them, in his view, and he would do it,
Speaker 1: and he would do it every time. So getting success
Speaker 1: with Kenny Rogers was certainly more frequent than not because
Speaker 1: whatever was needed to make him successful at that moment
Speaker 1: in time, he raised his game to deliver it. And
Speaker 1: then Uh, there's a lot of people, like professional athletes,
Speaker 1: you know, they're calm and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the lights come on and they turn it on. Was
Speaker 1: that what it was like for him live? Or was
Speaker 1: he what was he like just before he went on stage? Well,
Speaker 1: I remember in Las Vegas one time where he was.
Speaker 1: It was one of his first appearances at the Riviera.
Speaker 1: He was headlining, and we were in the dressing room
Speaker 1: and forty minutes thirty minutes before he ordered a dinner
Speaker 1: and they delivered the dinner ten minutes before he went
Speaker 1: on stage, and he calmly sat there eating it, got up,
Speaker 1: maybe burped a little, and walked on stage and did
Speaker 1: a sensational show. There was no nerves you ever saw ever.
Speaker 1: I mean I had artists who were afraid to go
Speaker 1: on stage. I had artists, Uh god. I remember backstage
Speaker 1: in in Japan when I was touring with Lionel Ritchie
Speaker 1: and we were and Barry Manila was on the program.
Speaker 1: You weren't allowed to look at Barry as he went
Speaker 1: from the dressing room to the stage. Nobody could make
Speaker 1: eye contact or even look there. I don't know how
Speaker 1: often that happened, but that uh, you know, there were
Speaker 1: times where I saw incredible nervousness in people and um
Speaker 1: before they went on stage, and then they got on stage,
Speaker 1: and they used that kind of energy to do something,
Speaker 1: you know, terrific. Uh. Kenny was just the opposite. He
Speaker 1: was the same guy on stage off stage, you know. He.
Speaker 1: I mean I had artists I managed who would never
Speaker 1: go anywhere because they really couldn't stand to be mobbed.
Speaker 1: Kenny Rodgers would go everywhere, but he wouldn't be mobbed
Speaker 1: because he just acted like one of the people that
Speaker 1: was there, you know. And he didn't like signing autographs. Uh,
Speaker 1: but he would he would post for pictures. Uh he uh,
Speaker 1: you know he he loved his fans. He knew how
Speaker 1: important they were to him. But we went to movie theaters,
Speaker 1: we went. He never restricted his life by being a celebrity,
Speaker 1: and that's pretty rare. So if you would go out
Speaker 1: shopping or go to the movie theater, would he bring security.
Speaker 1: He had one guy that was with him for many,
Speaker 1: many many years. Uh, whether he you know, maybe he hadn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one guy that I remember. I don't even think he
Speaker 1: was carrying anything. If there was real. You know at
Speaker 1: the times were a little different through some of the
Speaker 1: period of time. But he had once one guy who
Speaker 1: was kind of a a close associate friend, but was
Speaker 1: really had a police background and bodyguard kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I never paid any attention to whether he was carrying
Speaker 1: a gun or something like that. We never certainly needed it.
Speaker 1: We did have I do remember. The wildest things that
Speaker 1: I remember with Kenny was scary was walking. He was
Speaker 1: walking out of the out of going off the stage
Speaker 1: and walking through the audience into the tunnel, you know,
Speaker 1: to go to the dressing room, and a pregnant woman
Speaker 1: jumped down from from above him, you know, just as
Speaker 1: you're going under that overhang. She she it wasn't that
Speaker 1: high compared to where she were. He was just going
Speaker 1: under it, but jumped on him, just came from up there,
Speaker 1: and she was just enthusiasm. I don't think she fell,
Speaker 1: I think she jumped. Uh. That was probably one of
Speaker 1: the more scary moments. He used to do. A fun
Speaker 1: thing he used to he got a a guitar case
Speaker 1: or a large equipment case and had it built in
Speaker 1: such a way that he could sit in it, and
Speaker 1: he had he performed in the round for many years
Speaker 1: because you could get more people in the theater and
Speaker 1: he could walk around and he could connect with more people.
Speaker 1: And he oh, he started that. He was one of
Speaker 1: the first. He put his band in the middle and
Speaker 1: then it was like a donut and he walked around
Speaker 1: on the donut. Well. He arranged after a while to
Speaker 1: be pushed in this equipment card before the as the show,
Speaker 1: before the show was actually starting, and he was in
Speaker 1: the equipment card, and then he would come out of
Speaker 1: the equipment card and get on stage, come up on
Speaker 1: stage in a cloud of smoke, so you didn't see him,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, in the center of the stage,
Speaker 1: there he was appearing. The smoke clear, and he was there,
Speaker 1: and you never knew how he got out there. It
Speaker 1: was great. He loves to do stuff like that, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean that he was very adventurous, very adventurous. Did
Speaker 1: he ever push it too far? I don't think. I
Speaker 1: don't think so much in that area, I you know, um,
Speaker 1: I think what he pushed too far at times were
Speaker 1: just the elaborate way he had lived. He had grown
Speaker 1: up in total poverty. Kenny was a part one of
Speaker 1: eight kids living in a in a project in Houston
Speaker 1: when they had a home. Sometimes they were living in Crockett,
Speaker 1: Texas and in family homes and stuff. But eight of
Speaker 1: eight kids in one room is the way he described it.
Speaker 1: And some older than him, some younger and uh, and
Speaker 1: they were very poor. His father Kenny's I think a
Speaker 1: lot of Kenny's humor came from his father. His father
Speaker 1: worked as a carpenter. But what I was told by
Speaker 1: Kenny as the most money his father ever made was
Speaker 1: sixty dollars and he made it during the war in
Speaker 1: one week working at the at the docks as a carpenter.
Speaker 1: And and his father was also an alcoholic, a friendly,
Speaker 1: funny alcoholic, but an alcoholic, so he spent a lot
Speaker 1: of the money on alcohol, and he didn't make much.
Speaker 1: So it made it very, very tough on that family.
Speaker 1: Lucio was was the backbone of that family and pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: Did his father lived to see his success some of it? Yes,
Speaker 1: so he did. He did live live to it. And
Speaker 1: was he appreciative, yes, But Kenny would tell all kinds
Speaker 1: of funny stories how he would come home and his
Speaker 1: father wouldn't want to ask him for money directly, but
Speaker 1: he'd go you know, if a man had a saw,
Speaker 1: you know, an electric saw, he could build these these
Speaker 1: little bird houses and sell them. You know, it would
Speaker 1: be a great thing to have a really nice electric saw.
Speaker 1: Stories like that. My my favorite story. Kenny Kenny had
Speaker 1: a brother named Roy Rogers, and Roy played hookey from
Speaker 1: school one day and he came home and he all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, he saw his father coming up the
Speaker 1: front stare stairway in the middle of the day. So
Speaker 1: he went. Roy pulled up into an opening into the attic,
Speaker 1: and when he got up there, he found all these
Speaker 1: bottles hidden there. Suddenly, Roy, looking for a bottle of liquor,
Speaker 1: comes in, opens the thing and reaches up in there
Speaker 1: and Roy then the sun says, I can't remember now
Speaker 1: his name for a minute, but let's say ed. He says, ed,
Speaker 1: this is your conscience. Don't touch that music, that that liquor.
Speaker 1: He got in a lot of trouble the kid did
Speaker 1: for that. But uh, but it was pretty funny. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of valcohol, anyone who's been on the road knows
Speaker 1: that it's very tough to have the odulation of twenty
Speaker 1: people in an arena, then come back to your hotel
Speaker 1: room and be with the same people week after week.
Speaker 1: A lot of people cope with that via alcohol or drugs.
Speaker 1: How did Kenny do on those things? For most of
Speaker 1: his life, he really never touched alcohol. I think his
Speaker 1: father being an alcoholic was somewhat of a lesson to him. Um.
Speaker 1: For most of his life he was really really stayed
Speaker 1: away from alcohol or drugs. Uh. There were some drugs
Speaker 1: done in the group a minor retally, just smoking a
Speaker 1: little grass or something, but not for Kenny. He didn't
Speaker 1: touch any of that for many, many, many years, and
Speaker 1: at least till his fifties and then really I think
Speaker 1: at one point he had some problems with medication because
Speaker 1: he had back and knee operations and stuff, and so
Speaker 1: he probably had for a while. I think from what
Speaker 1: I understand, I wasn't really handling him during that period.
Speaker 1: But in the latter part of life, U he had
Speaker 1: to kind of get off of opioids or whatever it
Speaker 1: was that he was using for pain. But he just
Speaker 1: generally that wasn't his personality, you know, he just didn't
Speaker 1: need it and he didn't want to use it, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't part of his life. And he never drank.
Speaker 1: I don't think as far as I know, unless there
Speaker 1: was something in latter years, because I haven't didn't. I
Speaker 1: represent him for thirty three years, but that ended in
Speaker 1: two thousand and one. And um, and although we stayed
Speaker 1: close and talked on the phone, I never really heard
Speaker 1: anything that would make me think he was ever drinking,
Speaker 1: and he probably never did. Okay, what about were you
Speaker 1: involved when he got involved with Kenny Rogers Roasters? The
Speaker 1: chicken was that after? Oh? Yeah, yeah, that was John Y.
Speaker 1: Brown was the governor of Kentucky. And in fact he
Speaker 1: was married to Miss America or something right, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: and that's how they knew him because Mary Ann knew
Speaker 1: uh what was her name, Phyllis George. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: Mary Anne and Phillis George were very friendly. And we
Speaker 1: ended up getting invited to the Kentucky Derby and to
Speaker 1: stay at the Governor's mansion and the other guests that
Speaker 1: the Governor's mansion included, uh, Walter Cronkite. I ended up
Speaker 1: on the tennis court playing tennis with Kenny Rogers, Walter
Speaker 1: Cronkite and Kenny's pro guy named Kelly Ankerman. Uh, And
Speaker 1: I thought, I can't believe it. I'm here, I am
Speaker 1: facing across the net Walter Cronk I but uh, but
Speaker 1: John Y and Kenny became very good friends. And John
Speaker 1: Y had this idea of creating this Roasters and he
Speaker 1: did um and Kenny got a part of it. The
Speaker 1: problem really was to make those things successful you have
Speaker 1: to spend a fortune in advertising, and they never really
Speaker 1: did that. It was going to take a very significant
Speaker 1: amount of money. They had some success us with it.
Speaker 1: It was a very good product. There was one in Nashville,
Speaker 1: uh that I used to go to occasionally. Uh uh,
Speaker 1: And and Kenny went to a lot of the openings.
Speaker 1: He would and he would go whenever he was in
Speaker 1: a town where there was one. He just show up
Speaker 1: and surprise everybody. And it was a lot of fun
Speaker 1: for a while. He never made anything off of it,
Speaker 1: as I recalled, uh. And it finally ended up closing.
Speaker 1: John Y after he was governor, I think moved to Florida.
Speaker 1: They ran it out of Florida. But but you know,
Speaker 1: it became a joke in a funny way. I mean, uh.
Speaker 1: Seinfeld did a series where that Roasters opens up one
Speaker 1: of his shows. One of the episodes, Roasters opens up
Speaker 1: down below his apartment and the smell of the chicken
Speaker 1: is went wafting up into the apartment and it's driving
Speaker 1: them crazy, and they're trying to get rid of the roasters.
Speaker 1: And we had a lot of fun with that one. Now,
Speaker 1: let's make Kenny a little more three dimensional. You said
Speaker 1: a lot of positive things, but everyone's got their positive
Speaker 1: and negatives. What can you say to flesh amount as
Speaker 1: a person? Was he short tempered? Could he tolerate stupidity
Speaker 1: known as nice all the time? No? But I will
Speaker 1: say he came about as close to that as anybody
Speaker 1: you could imagine. He rarely got upset at anything. I
Speaker 1: think over the thirty, over our thirty three years, the
Speaker 1: only time he ever yelled at me or had a
Speaker 1: problem was back in the after, just after we'd done
Speaker 1: the first or set Gambler in the and the movie
Speaker 1: Cow to the County, and we're about to do the
Speaker 1: next Gambler. And he got a lawyer in town, a
Speaker 1: big time lawyer represented studio heads and heads of agencies
Speaker 1: and stuff. I don't remember his name. Fortunately he's no
Speaker 1: longer with us anyway. Uh. He got this lawyer and
Speaker 1: my lawyer, a wonderful guy named Tom Rowan, who I've
Speaker 1: had forever, said to me, Ken, the first thing he's
Speaker 1: gonna do is get rid of you. And sure enough,
Speaker 1: I get a call from Kenny Rodgers and he's furious
Speaker 1: that I have taken advantage of him by being his
Speaker 1: partner on things like The Gambler, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: I created and sold. I didn't write the script, but
Speaker 1: I created the idea, sold the movie, produced every frame
Speaker 1: of it, every aspect of it. And and the lawyer
Speaker 1: has convinced him that because we're fifty fifty partners on
Speaker 1: that I've taken huge advantage of him. And so now
Speaker 1: he's yelling at me that you know that deal can't
Speaker 1: go on ahead and and everything, and I'm calming him down.
Speaker 1: I don't remember another time in thirty three years. I
Speaker 1: mean I when I finally split with him, it was
Speaker 1: we were a three way partnership with Jim Aza, the
Speaker 1: record guy, and it was Jim who called me. I
Speaker 1: didn't even talk to Kenny. Kenny literally was honored three
Speaker 1: months later and apologize from stage at the Academy of
Speaker 1: Country Music Awards on television sort of said, Ken Craigan
Speaker 1: has been responsible for every great thing that happened to me.
Speaker 1: In the last thirty three years. Um, you know, and
Speaker 1: that kind of made everything up for me. Um and
Speaker 1: uh so I really have a hard time, uh I
Speaker 1: can you know. I've certainly had artists who were handfuls
Speaker 1: and uh but by the way, not for long. Because
Speaker 1: my theory is, if they're wrecking your life, move on,
Speaker 1: If they're dominating your life, move on. I was never
Speaker 1: ready and willing to let somebody make my life miserable
Speaker 1: or or you know, I want to. In fact, at
Speaker 1: one point I had a company called Ken Craigan and Friends.
Speaker 1: It's probably the best way to think about my I'm
Speaker 1: talking more about Kenny. Any other stories anecdotes. Do you
Speaker 1: remember he was almost too good to be true for
Speaker 1: a long time. He did have had He had problems
Speaker 1: with marriages early on. One of the early things that
Speaker 1: happened in the early beginning of the seventies was he
Speaker 1: was married to a lady who and they fought a
Speaker 1: lot and it was a very very up and down relationship.
Speaker 1: And the other members of the first edition came to
Speaker 1: me and said, you've got to talk to Kenny and
Speaker 1: tell him that if he can't keep his personal stuff
Speaker 1: away from the group, we're gonna have to let him
Speaker 1: out of the group, and I did, and ultimately it
Speaker 1: led to him getting a divorce. I don't know that
Speaker 1: that was the motivation for the divorce because they were
Speaker 1: having their problems, but truthfully, you never it wasn't that
Speaker 1: he was hiding that side. I mean, I this is
Speaker 1: a guy in that thirty three years, maybe less in
Speaker 1: the latter years, but in those thirty three years we
Speaker 1: were so intimately involved day and night, show after show
Speaker 1: on the road, off the road, you know, he was.
Speaker 1: He became such a mind. I mean I had other
Speaker 1: big clients, a lot of Richie and others, but Kenny
Speaker 1: was the number one client. And uh, I really had
Speaker 1: everything to do with him constantly. So you're talking about
Speaker 1: a lot of the great ideas you came up with.
Speaker 1: You remember any of the ideas that Kenny came up
Speaker 1: with or was it really more direction from you? Well,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting thought. I'm guaranteed he came up with
Speaker 1: plenty because he was always very creative. Um, but that's
Speaker 1: you know, you're gonna have to I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: really look at that, and that'd be sure he would
Speaker 1: take credit for ideas I came up with But I
Speaker 1: hope I rarely took credit for ideas he came up with.
Speaker 1: And he and he was that kind of you know person,
Speaker 1: and he was extremely creative. Um, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think we didn't. We did tend to divide it up.
Speaker 1: Where his creativity was it was most evident was in
Speaker 1: both selecting the music the show itself. I was rarely
Speaker 1: you know, the way he the idea of the of
Speaker 1: the circle, the performing in the circle, of coming on
Speaker 1: as a surprise of uh, getting the best lightering director
Speaker 1: and the imaginable and doing things that nobody else had
Speaker 1: done in that area. Uh So in the performance area,
Speaker 1: in the recording area, finding the right songs, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: tying up with duet partners. I can't ever remember bringing
Speaker 1: him a duet partner. I would run with the product
Speaker 1: and come up with ways to creative or promote what
Speaker 1: whatever he was doing. But all of that stuff, the
Speaker 1: wonderful songs, the wonderful duets, the wonderful live performances, those
Speaker 1: were those were his his doing, really quite completely. I
Speaker 1: just took and found ways to get those out to
Speaker 1: the widest possible audience. So are there any stories, uh,
Speaker 1: Kenny tales that we having covered. There's probably a hundred
Speaker 1: of him. I should uh, I should think about you know. Um,
Speaker 1: I was just gonna look at a list that I made.
Speaker 1: There there were you know, there were many moments in
Speaker 1: times that that we had fun stuff that happened. Opening
Speaker 1: the first Gambler, Um, I was able to get Lynda Evans,
Speaker 1: who was huge at that point. I guess it was
Speaker 1: a dynasty that she was on. And and um, Lynda
Speaker 1: Evans and Bruce box Lightner who was also very successful
Speaker 1: in them as his co stars. And we get out
Speaker 1: on the very first day shooting in Arizona and it's
Speaker 1: a hundred and eight degrees and the first scene is
Speaker 1: her being hanged. Uh. You know, she's being hanged and
Speaker 1: Kenny comes through and rescues her. Um, that's the first
Speaker 1: thing we shot. And at the and what she found immediately.
Speaker 1: This is really kind of a good story about Kenny
Speaker 1: because what Kenny would do was he couldn't get into
Speaker 1: the character completely until he was in the costume and
Speaker 1: had to deliver the lines. But he also would constantly
Speaker 1: I want to change the lines. In fact, it got
Speaker 1: so the director and he Dick Lowry was our young director,
Speaker 1: and he would be sometimes sitting for an hour or
Speaker 1: two on the set reworking the script. And the funny
Speaker 1: part of it was he often would change a change
Speaker 1: and change and and end up it would end him
Speaker 1: calling all the way around to where it really originally.
Speaker 1: Was so much so that the producers on one of
Speaker 1: our UH specials that we did, gave him a Christmas
Speaker 1: card and it said, you know, it said Mary Christmas,
Speaker 1: and Mary was crossed out and said Happy Christmas, and
Speaker 1: Happy was crossed out and said have a wonderful Christmas.
Speaker 1: And that was crossed out on you know, for twenty
Speaker 1: different ones, and finally the last one now not crossed
Speaker 1: out was Mary Christmas. That was typical of Kenny and scripts.
Speaker 1: I can remember literally typing pages while they were on
Speaker 1: the set making changes, and I went up. I always
Speaker 1: did whatever was necessary. It was somewhere in Arizona, and
Speaker 1: I had a typewriter and an old beat up building
Speaker 1: and was typing the script and having a runner run
Speaker 1: them to the set. On the words. I was getting
Speaker 1: that they were now doing well in any event. With
Speaker 1: Lynda Evans, that first day, she had a lady that
Speaker 1: worked with her, and that woman came up to me
Speaker 1: and said, you've got to come to Linda's trailer. She's, uh,
Speaker 1: she's crying and she's not sure she can do this movie.
Speaker 1: And I went to the trailer and she said, you
Speaker 1: know on the Moon when I was doing my series.
Speaker 1: When I'm doing the series, you get the script and
Speaker 1: you don't change a single word you were You learn
Speaker 1: it exactly as it is, and they would not allow
Speaker 1: you to change a word. Here Kenny's changing everything on
Speaker 1: the set and I can't work that way. And I
Speaker 1: a litta, but that's kind of the way he works.
Speaker 1: And she said, well, I don't think I can do it,
Speaker 1: And I said, just hanging there for a few days
Speaker 1: and see, by the end of the movie she loved
Speaker 1: it so much. She was now raving to me about
Speaker 1: how much fun it was to work where you could
Speaker 1: manipulate the script every day. That drove crew and dollars.
Speaker 1: You know how much it was costing us to do
Speaker 1: stuff nuts. But it was one of his traits that
Speaker 1: uh he and he always told me, when I get
Speaker 1: in the outfit and when I get on the set,
Speaker 1: that's when I really feel like doing it another time.
Speaker 1: By the way, one of my one of my favorite
Speaker 1: things that he ever did was on the movie Count
Speaker 1: of the County. He plays a preacher who's womanizing and
Speaker 1: doing other things and he's not a good guy. He
Speaker 1: is a good guy, but he's doing he's you know,
Speaker 1: off the path of righteousness here. So he has to
Speaker 1: give a sermon resigning from the pulpit and um, and
Speaker 1: Kenny decided to go home that night and rewrite or
Speaker 1: totally right the seram in and he came in the
Speaker 1: next day and delivered it. And it's, I think, on
Speaker 1: everything he's ever done, the best single piece of acting
Speaker 1: he ever did, because it came from the heart. It
Speaker 1: probably spoke to some of the things that were him
Speaker 1: in real life and it was just this incredibly moving
Speaker 1: confessional speech and uh and it ended up, I thought
Speaker 1: being the best acting I've ever seen him do. Well, Ken,
Speaker 1: this has been wonderful. Thanks for illuminating Kenny. How hearing
Speaker 1: all these stories? Do you think he'll be remembering? It's
Speaker 1: a big it's a big loss, but he lives on
Speaker 1: in an incredible way. Right now? Do you know that?
Speaker 1: By the way, just to end up and wrap up
Speaker 1: and say do you know that? In the week after
Speaker 1: Kenny died. His Greatest Hits album went to number one
Speaker 1: on the country charts, first time since nine. His The
Speaker 1: Gambler became the number one downloaded song in the country.
Speaker 1: Oh in the album. The album became number six on
Speaker 1: the Pop Truck on the Total Billboard one and The
Speaker 1: Bumbler became number one downloaded and Islands in the Stream
Speaker 1: number two. But people love Kenny. We love you Ken.
Speaker 1: Thanks for doing this till next time. This is Bob
Speaker 1: leftsas thank you.