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Kenny Rogers 1938-2020

After the Scholars, I immediately joined a jazz group called the Bobby Doyle Three. And Bobby was a blind guy, so I just put myself out front, because (laughs) … No, no. I met him, and he said, “I’d love for you to come play bass in my jazz group.” And I said, “I don’t even play bass, I play guitar.” And he said, “Yeah, but there’s a lot more of a demand for bad bass players than bad guitar players.”
Kenny Rogers Remembers His Days as a Teenage Guitarist
 
I had no idea he was such a competent bassist.

Before I even played bass I saw him playing a double bass on the Johnny Carson show I believe. (way back in the day) He even did a solo, I was really impressed. Young me even thought maybe my mama's favorite does have talent...….(I was a young metalhead at the time) Yes, young me, Kenny had more talent than you'll ever know...….RIP Gambler
 
He wrote an excellent book about the music biz, titled something like "How to Make It in Music". I really liked it because he talked about the biz from the bar band level up. He shared stories of his days booking gigs for his bar bands, all the way through his days as a solo singer with hit songs like "Lucille", "The Gambler" etc. He talked about professionalism in and off stage, business sensibility, being a performer as well as a businessman. One of the best parts is he talked about different approaches and offered even-handed explanation of how different approaches worked even if he didn't then they were the best choices ( as in independent labels vs. major labels back when that mattered)

So even nor being a fan of his solo work, I always had a lot of respect for his willingness to share what he had learned.