Kenny Rogers featured in
Billboard’s
50th
Anniversary of Adult Contemporary Chart
Rogers’ Ranks Sixth • Best All Time
& Fourth • Best Male with 28 AC Top 10
Hits
 According to Billboard, Kenny
Rogers’ 28 Adult Contemporary Top 10’s
are sixth-best all-time, and fourth-best among
men, trail-ing only Elton John, Neil Diamond and
Elvis Presley. Kenny Rogers' feats on the AC
chart include 47 hits, tying him with Barry
Manilow for seventh-most in the chart's history.
No core country artist has crossed over more
titles to AC. Rogers has scored eight AC No. 1s.
Rogers: "I remember when [the AC charts]
were established, I thought it was so cool. I've
always been a believer in the strength of the
song. My problem is I'm a country singer who's
had a lot of other musical influences, so my
stuff is going to tend to be more AC. That's
always been my slam in country music, that I was
never a true country artist, even though
"Coward of the County," "Daytime
Friends," "Buy Me a Rose,"
"The Gambler," those kinds of things,
were truly country records. When you add to that
"Through the Years," "You Believe
in Me," "You Decorated My Life,"
those were not country, but because I had power
at country music, they sold country.
"Country always wanted to really be country,
and I don't blame them - be what you want to be.
I spoke at a coun-try seminar one year, and I
told them, "Guys, what you're trying to do
is protect a type of music, and those of us who
are out there doing it are trying to protect
careers. We're trying to last longer, touch more
people with our mu-sic. I guarantee you in three
years you won't be playing Garth Brooks or Shania
Twain." This was in the peak of their
careers-and they all laughed at me. Sure enough,
three years later, they weren't playing them. So
what are [these artists] supposed to do if they
don't have some other source of income [or]
airplay other than country? When that's over, our
careers are over.
"[My crossover hits] turned a lot of people
toward country music that wouldn't have come to
it otherwise. When they realized I was singing
country sentiment with a little more accessible
tonality, then I think they came in. And the
great thing about country is once you come in,
you don't leave. It's such a pure music.
"I never set out to be on the AC charts; I
set out to do good songs. When I was on the
charts I paid a lot of atten-tion to them. I used
to love to pick up the charts and see where songs
were, where they were going, how they were doing.
I've always tried to find songs that say what
every man would like to say and every woman would
like to hear. When you think of "Through the
Years," "You Decorated My Life,"
"Lady," that's what those are. What man
wouldn't want to say, "Lady, I'm your night
in shining armor and I love you," and what
lady wouldn't want to hear that?"
WWW.KENNYROGERS.COM
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