Kenny Rogers took questions from the press at the 2008 Antigua and Barbuda Romantic Rhythms Music Festival on Saturday, June 14 before performing on stage at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.
Kenny Rogers (KR): You know, this is about the fifth one of these Caribbean island things we've done. And I'm always amazed. They took us down to Jamaica, and they have no idea what I do in Jamaica. And it was so wonderful. It was such a shock. And every island we've gone to, it's been that same reception, so it's exciting from that standpoint.
I've always said I think my strength is two-fold. I try to find songs that men like, like Coward of the County, Daytime Friends, The Gambler, and Lucile. But my real strength is doing ballads that say what every man would like to be able to say, and what every woman would like to hear.
You know, my wife and I have been married now for 11 years, been together for 16 years, and I'm so sorry we don't have this piece I found—we have identical twin boys at four years old, and we have film of them coming out on stage and singing with me, and I sing this song called To Me. Which, first of all, is a wonderful piece of music. It's a love song. But it's film that shows Wanda and the boys coming out, and I miss that because that's always been a highlight in the show for me.
Q: Tell us what we'll be expecting tonight.
KR: Well, you can expect me to screw up, I'm pretty sure. Because not only are we doing songs I haven't done in ten years, but we're doing them out of sequence.
Normally I do a lot of dialogue in the show. I talk to the audience, and I have this thing I do where I talk to a guy in the front row, who I'm convinced doesn't really want to be there, and they always say, "No, I-love-you-I-love-you," and I say, "I'll give you ten dollars for every one of my hits you can name." And it's a running bit throughout the show.
But when you have this kind of standing audience, you can't really do it, and outside the money blows away… and then we get fist-fights over the money…
But by virtue of the fact that I can't do all the dialogue, I have to add music. It's fun, it's living on the edge for me. We're doing songs like Love the World Away that I haven't done in literally ten years. And I'm in the bus, and I have a guy playing guitar and another guy hitting on a tambourine, and I'm trying to sing the songs.
You know, I've always said: If I go out there and don't screw up, people will have a good time. If I screw up, they'll have a great time, 'cause that's the fun of it, watching me dig myself out of the hole.
Q: Since you released your last album, what have you been up to?
KR: Well, I'm in the mist of a brand new album. I've got 8 songs of the 12 done. It's a wonderful project. There's some great music on here. The older I get…
I have a friend who's a psychologist and we had dinner one night. And I told him that it really bothered me that success was no longer important to me. He said an interesting thing happens to men as you get older, particularly if you've been successful. He said you stop striving for success, and you start striving for significance. He said it's a wonderful place to be in your life.
So I think that's what's happening to me. I'm not as concerned about hit songs, as much as songs that have something important to say. In the new album there's a bunch of those in there.
Q: Some people have described your music as country-pop. How would you describe it?
KR: Well, the interesting thing is that I started out in music in Jazz. I played upright bass and sang with a really avant-garde jazz group, and we did some very technical musical things. But when I was a kid growing up, my mom used to play country music, so I was raised on it, then I got derailed for ten years, and then I was with a group called the New Christy Minstrels, which was a folk group. So I think that I'm a country singer who's had a lot of other influences, and I think that allows me to do other songs that other guys don't have a feel for because they don't understand it.
The great thing about music is that once you do an art form, once you're really involved in jazz or folk music, and you get to the point where you understand what makes it good- the simplicity of folk music is what made it good. Country music is all about the heart. It's about people and their problems and how they solve these problems and how do we address them collectively and individually.
Q: What's your impression of country music today as opposed to when you started?
KR: Well certainly it's different. I don't know that that's good or bad, I don't think it's bad, it's just different. First of all, you have to understand the record business itself is tapering down because of the Internet, so everyone's trying to infuse it with something different, something new.
What young kids bring to an art form is energy. And they bring people in who might not normally—kids who might go to rock-n-roll, or some other form of music—come to country music. I've always had this theory that once you listen to country music, it's hard to go anywhere else, because it's such a pure music.
Q: Tell us about Antigua.
KR: We just got in this morning, and we have to leave in the morning. Really tight schedule. First of all, my two boys are at home, I talked to them today, and they don't even know we're out of town yet. So that's going to be a surprise for them when they go to bed.
I've always loved the Caribbean. I used to have a boat, and we came down several times to Antigua, and I always loved it. Loved the waters down here.
Q: Has the Caribbean experience influenced your music?
KR: I would tend to say no. I heard a song in Jamaica that I just loved, and I wanted to record it. And I never did. I wonder whether you guys know it, it's called Want to Wake Up with You, do you know that song?
Q: Boris Gardiner.
KR: It's such a cool song. I've never had a chance to do that. I would love to do it because it has that real cool Jamaican thing.
Q: Have you spoken with Boris Gardiner regarding…?
KR: No. But it's already been recorded, so he can't stop me if he wanted to… [laughter]
I have a question. Did Lionel sing Lady last night?
[reporters argue whether he did or not]
KR: I sent word to him "Do not sing that song." He wrote it, and I said, "Wait, wait, wait. That's my song. Find your own song." [laughter]
Q: But he sang Stuck on You.
KR: Oh, that's a great song. The great thing about him is that he's got so many world-class songs that fit into that (Caribbean) groove thing you're talking about. I'm sorry I missed him, because we're really good friends. We see each other about every ten years, but when we do it's really fun.
Q: Give us a little more background on your history with Lionel.
KR: When he was with the Commodores, that group was breaking up and he was living in Tuskegee [Alabama]. And I said, "You need to come to L.A. if you're going to get involved in the music business." So I literally brought him to L.A. and he lived in my guesthouse. Which he never paid rent on, I might add. [laughter]
He's just such a special person. He's got so much heart. He wrote a song that I'm doing on my new album called It's not Easy to Say Goodbye. And it's about when his mom died. And he said it took him five years to address that. But it's just a wonderful piece of music.
Additional Reporting by Matthew Simon.
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