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by Seth Rogovoy
LENOX, Mass., July 14, 1996 -- Country-pop singer Kenny Rogers growled, barked and brayed his way through the only of what was to be two shows at the National Music Center on Saturday night.No one ever accused Rogers of being Pavarotti -- or even Sinatra -- but whatever small measure of tonal control the balladeer once boasted was totally gone in a show that instead saw Rogers parlaying hoarse mumblings into semblances of his recognizable melodies.
Fortunately, Rogers had on hand plenty of spectacle -- a laser light show, film clips, free merchandise and cash gifts for the crowd and an 18-piece band, including nine horns, three keyboardists and three female vocalists -- to compensate for his lack of singing ability and all-around awkwardness on stage.
This latter element was perhaps the biggest surprise of the night. Rogers seemed poorly prepared for someone who has been in show business for nearly four decades. The show was poorly paced; long stretches between songs presumably intended to allow Rogers to "connect" with his audience merely brought the show to a dead halt. Technical glitches and missed lighting cues threw him for a loop. Band members had to scurry to find the right charts when he called for a song out of order. And his stiff-legged bearing made last weekend's performer, Paul Anka, look like Tom Jones. Even John Pinette, the 400-pound comic who opened the show for Rogers, was a looser physical presence.
But the greatest disappointment was Rogers' voice. It was clear from the outset that there was something wrong -- it sounded like he had a bullfrog in his throat that needed to get out. One presumed that his vocals would have warmed up and smoothed over as the evening progressed, but they never did. A funny, gargling sound plagued him throughout, and his range was drastically limited to just a few notes, making it all but impossible for him to sing ballads like "Morning Desire," "Lady" and "Lucille."
The show must go on, in any case, and Rogers treated his fans to nibbles from throughout his career. He brought vintage film clips from his stint with the The First Edition to help him and the audience swallow versions of "Ruby (Don't Take Your Love To Town)" and "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)." He brought forth the female vocalists for a medley of his famous duets, including "We've Got Tonight" and "Don't Fall In Love With a Dreamer," and even handed over the stage to them for a version of "Chain of Fools," a foolish move on his part, as it only underlined the disparity between their considerable vocal assets and his lack of them.
The National Music Center touted Rogers as its representative of country music in this summer's lineup. Saturday night's show merely underlined what an odd choice he was. It confirmed that far from being country -- there wasn't a fiddle, mandolin or pedal steel guitar within five miles of the stage -- Rogers is the man almost singlehandedly responsible for taking what was a thriving genre in the mid-'70s and steering it to its nadir as Las Vegasized, MOR pap that had nothing to do with the great American tradition of country music, a trend which took nearly a decade and a bunch of guys in cowboy hats to reverse.
Of course, Rogers has made a life's work out of co-opting styles and marketing them for the masses. He sold pop as folk with the New Christy Minstrels, and turned around and sold pop as hippie-rock with The First Edition. The only question that he didn't answer on Saturday night is what will he do for an encore?
John Pinette warmed up the crowd with an over-long set of gross jokes almost entirely focused on his eating habits. With frequent glances at his watch suggesting he may have been stalling for time, the enormous comic worked to death a self-deprecating routine about all-you-can-eat buffets -- hardly the stuff of a million laughs, which is presumably why he leavened the mix with some offensive ethnic stereotypes.
The entire evening was marred by technical difficulties, including ticketing snafus, wayward lighting cues and a basic inability to manage the crowd in and out of the hall. These problems plus a long delay lent the evening an overall sense of amateurishness which no venue charging $40 per ticket can justify.
[This review originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on July 15, 1996. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1996. All rights reserved.]
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