![kenny rogers through the years photo kenny rogers through the years photo](https://parade.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/KennyRogers-FTR.jpg)
Kenny rogers through the years photo archive#
On his 50th anniversary TV special Rogers performed a version of the song with his two friends Lionel Richie and Dolly Parton which also included archive footage of him working with both on various projects through the years. The Osmonds performed a cover of "Through the Years".
![kenny rogers through the years photo kenny rogers through the years photo](https://www.biography.com/.image/t_share/MTIwNjA4NjMzOTU4MzM2MDEy/kenny-rogers-9462275-1-402.jpg)
Rogers' version was a cover of Stevie Woods' "Through the Years" that appeared 6 months earlier on his 1981 album Take Me to Your Heaven, Īmerican gospel singer and pastor Norman Hutchins did his own version of "Through the Years" in 1992, with slightly altered lyrics. Rogers appeared and performed the song at the 1983 Grammy Awards and at an April 2001 halftime ceremony honoring Charles Barkley at a Philadelphia 76ers game. Rogers credited "Through the Years" as being one of his career songs, though it had relatively little success in North America. The song peaked at number five on the country chart. "Through the Years" reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in early 1982, remaining in the Top 40 for eleven weeks and went to number one on the adult contemporary chart, becoming Rogers' fifth single to top this chart.
![kenny rogers through the years photo kenny rogers through the years photo](https://cdn-s3.allmusic.com/cms/15584/blog_kennyrogers-article.jpg)
It was released in December 1981 as the fourth single from the album Share Your Love. " Through the Years" is a song written by Steve Dorff and Marty Panzer, and recorded by American country music artist Kenny Rogers. Girish Shahane writes on politics, history and art.1981 single by Kenny Rogers "Through the Years" It remains as valid as ever in that respect. The veteran’s advice was, in any case, not meant as a guide to winning at poker, but as a way to approach life. However, the game’s mythology still looms over it, and was never better expressed than in The Gambler. In the years since, it has moved further, to be dominated by mathematically inclined young men (and, very rarely, women) who attempt to approximate what is called a game theory optimal strategy, bolstering their understanding by tracking improvements in Artificial Intelligence. I took to poker long after I first heard The Gambler, by which time it had outgrown the shady world of underground games played by questionable characters in smoke-filled rooms.
Kenny rogers through the years photo professional#
Rogers’ deep, raspy voice perfectly suits the tale of a down-and-out young man on a train meeting a professional gambler who gives him sterling advice before dying in his sleep. This was true even of his signature number, The Gambler, which was written by Don Schlitz and first recorded by Bobby Bare and Johnny Cash. Although the choice of songs undoubtedly provides an insight into his personality, they were conceived by a disparate group of composers and he, at best, tinkered with the arrangements. So I thought, until I discovered he did not write any of the tunes he made famous. If art is a delving into our psyches, Kenny Rogers reached in deeper than most pop singers. I could feel within myself the anxieties of masculinity these songs explored, even as I was repelled by aspects of the articulation. I admired Lucille, Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town and Coward Of The County for the way they created strong characters and conveyed emotive stories through simple yet memorable melodies. Yet, it was the darker melodies that I favoured over his biggest-selling single, the love song Lady, or the massively popular duet with Dolly Parton, Islands In The Stream. Kenny Rogers sang a number of hit tunes which were of sunnier mood than the three I have described, and contained little that anyone could find objectionable. I found that hard to swallow, already having an inkling that women face the most institutionalized brutality precisely within societies that glorify the guarding of female honour by men. The implication is that the Gatlin boys would never have assaulted Becky had Tommy appeared from the get-go like a man capable of protecting his woman. The song’s perfect three-part structure appears to balance the danger of violence against its occasional necessity, but puts its thumb on the violent side of the scale by describing Tommy’s years of eschewing fights as “twenty years of crawling". Sometimes you gotta fight when you’re a man. Now please don’t think I’m weak, I didn’t turn the other cheek Having dispatched the Gatlin boys, Tommy addresses his dead father. He wasn’t holding nothin’ back, he let ‘em have it all Twenty years of crawling was bottled up inside him He finally breaks his vow when his girlfriend Becky is gang raped by the “Gatlin boys". The boy, named Tommy, grows up mocked for faintheartedness because of his refusal to fight. Son, you don’t have to fight to be a man. It won’t mean you’re weak if you turn the other cheek The protagonist of The Coward Of The County is sworn to a life of pacifism by his dying father who regrets his own violent transgressions. If I could move I’d get my gun and put her in the ground And the wants and needs of a woman your age, really I realizeīut later, as she shuts the door on her way out, his thoughts turn to murder: