Kenny Rogers was an American singer and songwriter. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013. Rogers was particularly popular with country audiences but also charted more than 120 hit singles across various genres, topping the country and pop album charts for more than 200 individual weeks in the United States alone. He sold more than 100 million records worldwide during his lifetime, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. His fame and career spanned multiple genres: jazz, folk, pop, rock, and country. He remade his career and was one of the most successful cross-over artists of all time.
Tracy Lee Lawrence is an American country music singer, songwriter, and record producer. Born in Atlanta, Texas, and raised in Foreman, Arkansas, Lawrence began performing at age 15 and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1990 to begin his country music career. He signed to Atlantic Records Nashville in 1991 and made his debut late that year with the album Sticks and Stones. Five more studio albums, as well as a live album and a compilation album, followed throughout the 1990s and into 2000 on Atlantic before the label's country division was closed in 2001. Afterward, he recorded for Warner Bros. Records, DreamWorks Records, Mercury Records Nashville, and his own labels, Rocky Comfort Records and Lawrence Music Group.
Kenneth Arnold Chesney is an American country singer. He has recorded more than 20 albums that include more than 40 Top 10 singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts, 33 of which have reached number one. Many of these also have charted within the Top 40 of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, making him one of the most successful crossover country artists. He has sold over 30 million albums worldwide.
James William Anderson III, known professionally as Bill Anderson, is an American country music singer, songwriter, and television host. His soft-spoken singing voice was given the nickname "Whispering Bill" by music critics and writers. As a songwriter, his compositions have been covered by various music artists since the late 1950s, including Ray Price and George Strait.
Radney Muckleroy Foster is an American country music singer-songwriter, musician and music producer. Initially a songwriter in Nashville, Tennessee, Foster made his recording debut as part of the Foster & Lloyd duo, recording three studio albums and with nine singles on the country charts.
Country pop is a fusion genre of country music and pop music that was developed by members of the country genre out of a desire to reach a larger, mainstream audience. Country pop music blends genres like rock, pop, and country, continuing similar efforts that began in the late 1950s, known originally as the Nashville sound and later on as Countrypolitan. By the mid-1970s, many country artists were transitioning to the pop-country sound, which led to some records charting high on the mainstream top 40 and the Billboard country chart. In turn, many pop and easy listening artists crossed over to country charts during this time. After declining in popularity during the neotraditional movement of the 1980s, country pop had a comeback in the 1990s with a sound that drew more heavily on pop rock and adult contemporary. In the 2010s, country pop metamorphosized again with the addition of hip-hop beats and rap-style phrasing.
"But You Know I Love You" is a song written by Mike Settle, which was a 1969 pop hit for Kenny Rogers and The First Edition, a group that included Settle and Kenny Rogers. The song also became a major country hit by Bill Anderson in 1969. In 1981, a cover version of "But You Know I Love You" by singer Dolly Parton topped the country singles charts.
"You Don't Know Me" is a song written by Eddy Arnold and Cindy Walker in 1955. "You Don't Know Me" was first recorded by Arnold that year and released as a single on April 21, 1956, on RCA Victor. The best-selling version of the song is by Ray Charles, who took it to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1962, after releasing the song on his number 1 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. The first version of the song to make the Billboard charts was by Jerry Vale in 1956, peaking at number 14 on the pop chart. Arnold's version charted two months later, released as an RCA Victor single, 47–6502, backed with "The Rockin' Mockin' Bird", which reached number 10 on the Billboard country chart. Cash Box magazine, which combined all best-selling versions at one position, included a version by Carmen McRae that never appeared in the Billboard Top 100 Sides listing.
William Harold Dean Jr. is an American country music singer and songwriter.
John Rich is an American country music singer-songwriter, record producer, and entrepreneur. From 1992 to 1998, he was a member of the country band Lonestar, in which he played bass guitar, co-writing his inaugural #1 hit song called "Come Cryin' to Me" and sharing lead vocal duties with Richie McDonald. Departing from Lonestar in 1998, he ventured into a solo career under BNA Records in the late 1990s, where he released two singles and recorded Underneath the Same Moon, which was delayed until 2006. In 2001, he singlehandedly released Rescue Me, an album inspired by a cancer patient named Katie Darnell. By 2003, he teamed up with Big Kenny to establish the duo Big & Rich, achieving success with three albums under Warner Bros. Records as well as ten singles, notably chart topper "Lost in This Moment". After Big & Rich went on hiatus in 2007, Rich began work on a third solo album, Son of a Preacher Man, yielding two more chart singles including the Top Ten hit song "Shuttin' Detroit Down." In 2011, he released two extended plays, Rich Rocks and For the Kids, before re-vitalizing Big & Rich in 2012. They launched Big and Rich Records in 2014, experiencing considerable success with big hits like "Look At You", "Loving Lately", and "Run Away with You."
"Elvira" is a song written and originally recorded by Dallas Frazier in 1966 on his album of the same name. Though a minor hit for Frazier at the time of release, the song became a bigger and much more famous country and pop hit by the Oak Ridge Boys in 1981. "Elvira" is now considered one of the Oak Ridge Boys' signature songs.
"The Gambler" is a song written by Don Schlitz and recorded by several artists, most famously by American country singer Kenny Rogers.
Once Upon a Christmas is a collaborative studio album by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. It was released on October 29, 1984, by RCA Records. The album was produced by Rogers with David Foster. It was Rogers' second Christmas album, following 1981's Christmas, and Parton's first. The album's release was accompanied by a CBS television special, Kenny & Dolly: A Christmas to Remember. The album was certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA in 1989.
"Through the Years" is a song written by Steve Dorff and Marty Panzer, and recorded by American country music artist Kenny Rogers. It was released in December 1981 as the fourth single from the album Share Your Love.
"You're the Inspiration" is a song written by Peter Cetera and David Foster for the group Chicago and recorded for their fourteenth studio album Chicago 17 (1984), with Cetera singing lead vocals. The third single released from that album, it reached No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart in January 1985 and also climbed to the top position on the Adult Contemporary chart at the same time. The song won honors for Cetera from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), in 1986 in the most-performed songs category.
"Buy Me a Rose" is a song written by Jim Funk and Erik Hickenlooper, and recorded by American country music artist Kenny Rogers. It was released in October 1999 as the third single from his album She Rides Wild Horses and peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts in May 2000. The song made Rogers the oldest country singer to have a number one hit until Willie Nelson beat the record through a duet with Toby Keith on his 2003 single "Beer for My Horses". "Buy Me a Rose" was Rogers' first number one hit since 1987's "Make No Mistake, She's Mine" and his final charting top 40 hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart since 1984's "What About Me?".
This Side of the Moon is the third studio album by American singer Elizabeth Cook, released on May 17, 2005, by Hog Country Production. Cook based the album on her experience with the Warner Bros. record label, which had released her second studio album, Hey Y'all in 2002. Initially signed to AOL-Time Warner, she was transferred to Warner Bros. and experienced problems with the label, including an album delay. Hey Y'all was commercially unsuccessful and was not heavily promoted; its songs were not played on country radio. Cook voluntarily left Warner Bros. in 2003, and used her disappointment working in Nashville's Music Row as inspiration for her follow-up album.
Lonestar is an American country music band founded in 1992 by Richie McDonald, John Rich, Keech Rainwater, Michael Britt and Dean Sams. The band has released 12 studio albums, five compilation albums, and 35 singles. Lonestar's first five releases for BNA Records are all certified Gold or higher by the RIAA, and their 2003 greatest hits album is certified Platinum. The band's highest-certified album is 1999's Lonely Grill at 3× Platinum. An eighth album, Party Heard Around the World, was released in April 2010. This was also the only album to feature lead singer Cody Collins, who replaced McDonald and served as lead vocalist from 2008 to 2011.
"I Don't Need You" is a song written by Rick Christian, and was first recorded and released as a single in 1978 on Mercury Records, by Rick Christian himself at Shoe Productions, a recording studio/production company in Memphis, Tennessee, but it failed to chart.
"Sweet Music Man" is a song written and recorded by American musician Kenny Rogers. It appears on his 1977 album Daytime Friends, from which it was released as the final single.
