Steve Braunias: You picked a fine time to leave us, Kenny

Country Superstar and contemporary music icon Kenny Rogers during a concert at Vector Arena in Auckland in 2017. Photo / Brett Phibbs

COMMENT

The passing of Kenny Rogers, who was so huge and so loved in New Zealand that he felt like a part of us, would be a sad occasion at any time but there was something poignant in the news that he died this week just as Covid-19 prepares to flatten everything in its path.

He slipped out the back door. He got out before the going got real bad. He died a quiet, decent, old-fashioned death.

God he was good. He had a gentle way about him, with his soft, barely-there singing, and the lightest of touches on a melody. He was country music without the dust and the beer and the cattle, but he stood for good manners and pure sentiments.

Also, he dressed mighty fine, and always had a fine-looking woman on his arm as the king of the duet – 'Islands in the Stream' with Dolly Parton, 'We've Got Tonight' with Sheena Easton, 'Don't Fall in Love with a Dreamer' with Kim Carnes.

He had a special affinity for New Zealand and it was forged before he became one of the world's biggest-selling solo stars. In the late 1960s and early 70s he was a singer and humble bass player with the First Edition.

They couldn't get arrested in the States but they were headline acts in New Zealand, constantly touring and building up a fan base that stayed loyal to Rogers when the band broke up.

A pretty good documentary about the First Edition on tour here is available online, at NZ On Screen. 'Rolling Through New Zealand' (1974) captures the band ripping it up in front of excited audiences in the provinces, stopping to play softball and volleyball, and wondering why it is that Kiwis love them to death: "I don't know why it is," muses one guy in the band, "we just seem like the perfect group for the country".

Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers rehearse a song for their appearance on the TV show Live... And in Person in Los Angeles in 1983. Photo / AP

The First Edition were a hippie showband, with mass harmonies and constant tambourines, capable of insane psychedelia. The stoned classic 'Just Dropped in (To See What Condition my Condition Was In') opens with a backward guitar solo. But only Rogers had an X-factor. The camera is drawn to him, a big guy with shades and a lot of fringed denim, a sort of fat, sexy bear.

His hair turned white when he went solo. He looked like a holy man, tender and wise, telling stories of gamblers and cowards, and women who had enough of gamblers and cowards.

He could do no wrong, he was immaculate. Jerks hated him in the way they always hate massively popular acts, and think their music is somehow cheap, and lacking, but Rogers put in all kinds of delicate shades and phrasings in the songs that made the whole world hum.

He was like Glen Campbell and Neil Diamond, who I had the deep pleasure of interviewing in the early 1990s. Campbell told me I was a dead ringer for producer Phil Spector, which I took as a great compliment at the time, less so when Spector later went mad, got sent to prison, and looked like a total freak.

I met Diamond backstage in Sydney. He was a nervous but functioning wreck. The writer and cartoonist Tom Scott read my two very adoring profiles, and said, "God, who next? Kenny Rogers?"

Country Superstar and contemporary music icon Kenny Rogers during a concert at Vector Arena in Auckland in 2017. Photo / Brett Phibbs

I interviewed Rogers and that was a great thrill, too. He talked about how much he loved three things: New Zealand, God, and fried chicken. I told him how much I loved his music.

"Well," he said, his hair as white as snow, his voice not much more than a whisper, "that's mighty good of you to say."

Real nice guy. So many great songs. So long, pardner.