Kenny Rogers: Ready to fold 'em at Ravinia Sunday

For a guy who has been singing that you've got to “know when to fold 'em” for nearly 40 years, Kenny Rogers had no single epiphany when deciding to go on one final tour.

“I can't say there was anything that triggered it,” says Rogers, who headlines Ravinia Festival Sunday, July 24. “I just remember I called my management and I said, ‘You know, I'd like to do a farewell tour.'”

Naturally, they hesitated.

After all, he has been a solid concert draw for decades, one of the biggest-selling recording artists of all time, with more than 120 million records sold worldwide.

But Rogers persisted, telling them: “If I don't do it now, I may not be around for a farewell tour. I really want to do this. I want to go to all the places I've been before and say thank you and do a final show and have some fun with it.”

And that, he says, is exactly what he's doing.

Others in show business have made farewells an iffy declaration: Kiss, Cher, the Who — they've all gone on lavish final tours, only to return to the road later.

“Look how young they are, though,” Rogers counters. “They don't come close to me. I am my age and I know it. I'm 77. By the time I finish this, I'll be going on 79. I just hope I'll be able to finish the tour.”

But to reiterate: “It's definitely the last time.”

On “The Gambler's Last Deal: Final World Tour,” Rogers has been enjoying himself.

“I'm at a point where I like it more now than I did the last two years, because we're doing a totally different show,” he says. “We've done some things we've never done before, and showing some films with it that explain it. It's kind of a chronological look at my career starting in 1954. The times were different then, to say the least.”

And Rogers has made some adjustments onstage to accommodate his age.

“I sit down for most of the show because I've got some back and leg problems. That creates some humor. I talk about that. So everything has a purpose.”

Fans at backstage meet-and-greets — “people that I've been seeing for 20 years, and I know by name from having been there” — understand his reasoning for the farewell tour.

“I explain to them I have identical twin 11-year-old boys and that's what I'm going home to, that and my wife. I didn't do that with my older boys, and I missed it. I missed that part of their lives.”

Recapping Rogers' entire career means jumping genres, from jazz with the Bobby Doyle Three, to folk with the New Christy Minstrels, to psychedelic rock with the First Edition (whose enduring hit “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In)” was used in both the dream sequence of the 1998 cult classic “The Big Lebowski” and last season's “Fargo”).

“Every career is touched on,” he says of his tour, “and it's really fascinating. A lot of this stuff I've kind of forgotten about, so it's good for me to go back and relive it, too.”

Rogers says that once he had a hit in 1977 with “Lucille,” which sold 5 million copies and brought him to the top of the country charts and then pop's Top 5 — still a rare thing — he knew he had a home for his sound.

“‘Lucille' was really the game changer for me,” he says.

But it was perfectly natural.

“My mom used to listen to country music all the time,” Rogers says. “I'd be getting up and going to school and she'd have a big pitcher of ice tea on the ironing board, doing the ironing and listening to Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell and those guys. So I think it was kind of embedded in me.”

Still, he says, “my influences at first were more jazz — music of the '30s and '40s. And then I got around to doing different kinds of music I was influenced by. I was with the New Christy Minstrels, and I learned the value of doing a story song that had social significance.”

That became a signature of Rogers' repertoire.

“Like ‘Reuben James' was about a black man who raised a white child. ‘Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town' is about a Vietnam War vet. ‘Coward of the County' was about a rape,” Rogers says. “I tend to like to sing about things rather than just words.”

And then there were his love songs, for which he had a specific goal.

“I'd say, ‘I want to do ballads that say what every man would like to say and every woman would want to hear,'” he says. “And if you look at ‘She Believes in Me,' ‘You Decorated My Life,' ‘Through the Years,' ‘Lady' — they are the things that every man would like to say and every woman would like to hear. And the reason I did that was then you had both audiences: You had the male and female audiences.”

“Lady,” in particular, brought Rogers together with Lionel Richie to build a rare bridge between smooth R&B and country balladry.

“I had always loved his work with the Commodores,” Rogers says. “And I called him and I said, ‘I'd like you to write me a song.' He said, ‘I don't think I have time.' And I said, ‘Well, I'm going to put it on “The Greatest Hits” album and it will probably sell 5 or 6 million copies.' And he said, ‘How's Sunday night at 8:30?'”

That collaboration was Rogers' first No. 1 song on the pop charts, but also his 10th No. 1 country hit.

His only other No. 1 pop song was 1983's “Islands in the Stream,” a Bee Gees-written tune intended for Marvin Gaye but retooled as a duet for Rogers and Dolly Parton.

“That was a totally different place for me to be,” Rogers says of that hit, part of an entire album produced by Barry Gibb.

By 1985, Rogers shared Richie's manager, Ken Kragen, who also organized the “We Are the World” recording session in 1985. On it, Rogers' voice is heard fourth, right after Richie, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon.

“That was a great gift,” Rogers says. “It was a wonderful bunch of people, and it was a great idea and a great song. Michael Jackson wrote that with Lionel, so I felt right at home, melodically and musically.”

Among the many other writers for Rogers: Prince.

“I knew some friends who knew him. I never met him,” Rogers says. “But I said, just jokingly, ask him to write me a song. And he wrote me this song called ‘You're My Love.'”

It ended up on Rogers' 1986 album “They Don't Make Them Like They Used To.”

“I listened to it again the other day,” Rogers says. “It's a beautiful song, and it's so typical of him. There's a lot of great melodies, great harmonies, great background parts.”

Rogers also worked with another musical giant who died this year, Beatles producer George Martin, who recorded Rogers' 17th album, “The Heart of the Matter,” in 1985. It was Rogers' last album to reach No. 1 on the country charts.

“That broke my heart, too,” Rogers says of Martin's death in March. “He was such a gentlemen, and I really enjoyed working with him and listening to the way he talked to his musicians. ... And he, as witnessed with the Beatles stuff, came to this music totally different than anyone I had ever worked with before. He was very gentle, yet very deep with it.”

Rogers can't touch on every part of his career in his farewell tour, which he says they will eventually film.

“I'm going to ask them not to play it until after I die,” he says. “I look too old now. I don't mind being old; I hate looking old.”

Rogers is still recognized in Asia, though for an entirely different reason — there's still a flourishing line of Kenny Rogers Roasters restaurants.

“I go over there and walk in,” he says, “and somebody will recognize me from looking at the cups.”

Kenny Rogers' Final World Tour: The Gamblers Last Deal

With the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and special guest Linda Davis

<b>When:</b> 7 p.m. Sunday, July 24; gates open at 4 p.m.

<b>Where:</b> Ravinia Festival, 418 Sheridan Road, Highland Park

<b>Tickets:</b> $50/$70 pavilion; $27 lawn. (847) 266-5100 or <a href="http://www.ravinia.org/">ravinia.org/</a>