Kenny Rogers^†

Before 'The Gambler' made him a household name, Rogers spent a decade with the First Edition, a psychedelic country-pop act that nobody quite knew how to classify. The solo career launched properly with 'Lucille' in 1977, a No. 1 hit in 12 countries, and announced him as something unusual: a crossover artist who could pull pop audiences without pretending to be anything other than country. 'The Gambler' wasn't even his song. Don Schlitz wrote it, Willie Nelson passed on it, and Rogers turned it into a 1980 Grammy winner, a Library of Congress inductee, and a five-film TV franchise.

At his commercial peak in the early 1980s, Rogers was trading crossover hits with Dolly Parton and selling out arenas worldwide. The 2013 Country Music Hall of Fame induction confirmed what the charts said for decades. But the chicken complicated things. Kenny Rogers Roasters launched in 1991, grew to 350 locations worldwide, went bankrupt in 1998, and sold for $1.25 million. Rogers failed a blind taste test of his own chain's chicken on Conan O'Brien in 1996. US locations are mostly gone, but hundreds of Roasters outposts still run across Asia, making him a bigger fast-food brand overseas than he ever was at home.

'Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In),' the First Edition's 1968 psychedelic rock hit, is not the origin story most people expect for a country crossover star. Off the stage, he became a serious interior decorator, winning contracts for public spaces in northwest Atlanta through his firm Kenji Design Studios. He published several photography books and bred Arabian horses on a 1,200-acre Georgia farm. A theme park called Kennyland was announced in 2015 and never built, which is the logical endpoint of the whole enterprise.

His death on March 20, 2020 fell in the first days of COVID lockdowns, making an immediate public memorial impossible. One of his final Capitol Records recordings, 'Goodbye,' written by Lionel Richie, was sent to country radio the week after his death. Dolly Parton posted a video tribute saying 'You never know how much you love somebody until they're gone.' A memorial service was held at Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta in March 2022, two years after his death, with over 15 speakers.