| "The Gambler" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Kenny Rogers | ||||
| from the album The Gambler | ||||
| B-side | "Momma's Waiting" | |||
| Released | November 15, 1978 | |||
| Studio | Jack Clement Recording (Nashville, Tennessee) | |||
| Genre | Country | |||
| Length | 3:34 | |||
| Label | United Artists | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Don Schlitz | |||
| Producer(s) | Larry Butler | |||
| Kenny Rogers singles chronology | ||||
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| Music video | ||||
| "The Gambler" on YouTube | ||||
"The Gambler" is a song written by Don Schlitz and recorded by several artists, most famously by American country singer Kenny Rogers.
Schlitz wrote the song in August 1976 when he was 23 years old. On the American Top 40 radio program of February 3, 1979, Casey Kasem reported that Schlitz said of "The Gambler": "Something more than me wrote that song. I'm convinced of that. I really had no idea where the song was coming from. There was something going through my head, which was my father. It was just a song, and it somehow filtered through me. Six weeks later I received the final verse. Months later it came to me that it was inspired by, and possibly a gift from, my father." Schlitz's father had died in 1976.
Schlitz shopped the song around Nashville for two years before Bobby Bare recorded it on his album Bare at the urging of Shel Silverstein. Bare's version did not catch on and was never released as a single, so Schlitz recorded it himself, but that version failed to chart higher than No. 65. Other musicians took notice and recorded the song in 1978, including Johnny Cash, who put it on his album Gone Girl .
Rogers recorded the song at the Jack Clement Recording Studio in Nashville, Tennessee with producer Larry Butler. Musicians who played on the song included Ray Edenton and Jimmy Capps on acoustic guitar, Pete Drake on pedal steel guitar, Billy Sanford on electric guitar, Jerry Carrigan on drums, Hargus "Pig" Robbins on piano, Bob Moore on acoustic bass, Tommy Allsup on the “tic-tac” (baritone) bass guitar, and the Jordanaires and Dottie West (uncredited) on backing vocals. [1]
Released in November 1978 as the title track from Rogers' album The Gambler , this version of the song achieved mainstream success. Rogers' version was a No. 1 country hit, and made its way to the pop charts at a time when country songs rarely crossed over, winning him the Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance in 1980. [2]
In 2006, Schlitz featured in Rogers' career retrospective documentary The Journey, in which he praised both Rogers' and producer Larry Butler's contributions to the song, stating "they added several ideas that were not mine, including the new guitar intro".
The lyrics describe the song's narrator meeting a gambler one summer evening while riding aimlessly on a train. The gambler can tell from the look on the narrator's face that he is in poor circumstances and offers him advice in exchange for a drink of whisky. After the narrator obliges with the whisky as well as a cigarette, the gambler describes his outlook on life using poker metaphors:
The gambler states that every situation can be played for better or worse. The trick is to recognize what is worth keeping, choose one's battles, and not dwell on losses. After he finishes talking, the gambler crushes the cigarette out, falls asleep, and passes away in the night, leaving the narrator to ponder his wisdom alone. [3]
Weekly charts
| Year-end charts
|
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Denmark (IFPI Danmark) [18] | Gold | 45,000‡ |
| New Zealand (RMNZ) [19] | 2× Platinum | 40,000* |
| United Kingdom (BPI) [20] | 2× Platinum | 1,200,000‡ |
* Sales figures based on certification alone. | ||
The song became Rogers's signature song and most enduring hit. It was one of five consecutive songs by Rogers to hit No. 1 on the Billboard country music charts. [21] On the pop chart, the song made it to No. 16, and No. 3 on the Easy Listening chart. [22] It inspired a series of TV movies loosely inspired by the song and set in the Old West, starting with Kenny Rogers as The Gambler (1980) and followed by Kenny Rogers as The Gambler: The Adventure Continues (1983), Kenny Rogers as The Gambler, Part III: The Legend Continues (1987), The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1991), and Gambler V: Playing for Keeps (1994).
As of November 13, 2013, the digital sales of the single stood at 798,000 copies and after all these years the single has yet to be certified gold by RIAA certifications. [23] In 2018, it was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". [24] The song was ranked number 18 out of the top 76 songs of the 1970s by Internet radio station WDDF Radio in their 2016 countdown. [25] Following Rogers' death on March 20, 2020, "The Gambler" soared to No. 1 on Billboard's Digital Song Sales chart, followed by "Islands in the Stream", with Dolly Parton, which debuted at No. 2. [26]
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.
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The Gambler is the sixth studio album by American singer Kenny Rogers, released by United Artists in November 1978. One of his most popular, it has established Rogers' status as one of the most successful artists of the 1970s and 1980s. The album reached many markets around the world, such as the Far East and Jamaica, with Rogers later commenting "When I go to Korea or Hong Kong people say 'Ah, the gambler!'". The album has sold over 5 million copies.
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"Coconut" is a novelty song written and first recorded by American singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson, released as the third single from his 1971 album, Nilsson Schmilsson. It was on the U.S. Billboard charts for 14 weeks, reaching #8, and was ranked by Billboard as the #66 song for 1972. It charted in a minor way in the UK, reaching #42. "Coconut" did best in Canada, where it peaked at #5.
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Donald Allen Schlitz Jr. is an American songwriter who has written more than a score of number one hits on the country music charts. He is best known for his song "The Gambler", and as the co-writer of "Forever and Ever, Amen", and "When You Say Nothing at All". For his songwriting efforts, Schlitz has earned two Grammy Awards, and four ASCAP Country Songwriter of the Year awards.
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