Kenny Rogers - BBC In Concert, London, Britain, 1-10-1979

I can't say I'm much of a Kenny Rogers fan. But it can't be denied that he's had massive success, selling over 100 million records worldwide, and he has some classic country hits. So when I came across a bootleg of this concert the other day, I figured it was worthy of inclusion in my big BBC project.

I looked up Rogers' discography, and I was surprised to find that although he's released dozens and dozens of studio albums, he only ever released three live albums. And all three seem to be surprisingly bad, coming late in his career with complaints from reviewers of poor sound quality. One specifically is a Christmas album. So that probably makes this his best live album, if only due to a lack of competition. This also appears to be the only BBC recording from him that I could find, although who knows, sometimes others pop up later.

At the time of this concert, in early 1979, Rogers was near the peak of his popularity. He'd just had a massive hit in late 1978 with "The Gambler," which became his signature song. He'd had some other big hits too, like "Lucille" and "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town." However, some other big ones were still to come, like "Coward of the County," "Islands in the Stream," "Lady," and "We've Got Tonight."

In the middle of the show, Rogers left the stage to allow a pop duo called "Dave and Sugar" to perform. I wasn't too impressed with this duo, which never had much commercial success, and it kind of ruined the flow of the concert, in my opinion. So I cut out those two songs. Sorry to all the hordes of Dave and Sugar fans out there. ;) 

Weirdly, back in 1968, Rogers had a minor hit with an unabashedly psychedelic song describing an L.S.D. trip, called "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)." It was his very first hit, while he was lead singer to the band the First Edition. Weirder still, Rogers performed this song at a prime spot towards the end of this concert.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 Desperado (Kenny Rogers)
02 talk (Kenny Rogers)
03 Love or Something like It (Kenny Rogers)
04 Lucille (Kenny Rogers)
05 Daytime Friends (Kenny Rogers)
06 talk (Kenny Rogers)
07 Sweet Music Man (Kenny Rogers)
08 In and Out of Your Heart (Kenny Rogers)
09 Every Time Two Fools Collide (Kenny Rogers)
10 Heart to Heart (Kenny Rogers)
11 Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town (Kenny Rogers)
12 talk (Kenny Rogers)
13 There's an Old Man in Our Town (Kenny Rogers)
14 talk (Kenny Rogers)
15 Just Dropped In [To See What Condition My Condition Was In] (Kenny Rogers)
16 The Gambler (Kenny Rogers) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ap7SmMNA

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/pv4I2Lu9BhcF97I/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert.