A Good CD

I am not a huge Kenny Rogers fan, but he did some quality songs such as "Coward Of The County", "Ruby Don't Take Your Love To Town", "Love Will Turn You Around", "We Got Tonight" (Although Bob Seger's version is better), and of course "The Gambler". You get all the Rogers you will need except "Islands In The Stream". It is a worthwhile CD to have in your collection.

good songs

this CD is a wonderful look at some of Kenny's big hits. he's had success on the country, pop, and Adult-Contemporary charts since the the late '60s. he formed the First Edition in 1967 i think and went solo in 1973 and his debut single on the country charts as a solo act was the #19 country hit "Love Lifted Me" in early 1976. he followed that with the great "While The Feeling's Good", which hit #46 country. he was back at #19 with the next release, "Laura, What's He Got That I Ain't Got?" in late 1976 but in January 1977 he hit the chart with "Lucille" and from that point forward, Kenny became a VERY popular singer in both country and pop with his vibrato singing style, highlighted in several of his smash hits on this CD: "Lady", "You Decorated My Life", "Through the Years", etc. This CD arrived in 1983 on the Liberty label and it collects the bulk of his signature hits that everybody knows from United Artists and Liberty but the RCA singles aren't on here, because the album was issued in 1983 before his RCA stint started to get hot so there's no "Islands in the Stream", "Buried Treaure", "Crazy", "Morning Desire", or other mid/late '80s RCA smash hits. do find it interesting that RCA didn't promote Kenny that well in the pop market because after he joined them, his pop cross-overs never cracked the Top-60 again...except a fluke called "What About Me?" in 1984 with Kim Carnes and James Ingram that hit #15 pop, #1-AC, and #70 country. track 18, "I Don't Need You" was Kenny's biggest AC hit, reaching #1 for a total of 6 weeks and also hitting #1 country for 2 weeks and peaking at #3 pop in 1981. Kenny's ability to chart high on country, pop, and AC charts needs some explaination. before the '90s, the charts weren't as airplay-driven as they are now. for example: the Billboard Country chart ranks singles by airplay, not actual popularity with the public because if you flip a page or two in the Billboard magazine and look at the Country Single Sales chart, you'll see some differing songs on there that the public is actually BUYING but aren't being played and making the bigger country chart. Kenny's singles were such high sellers that they placed higher on the pop chart than other country singers that might have a cult pop following but with demand from pop listeners in general, the pop stations had to play his songs because they were too popular to ignore...so Kenny was a rare example of having it both ways and being successful: he had the country audience, a pop/AC audience, and strong airplay on both formats! This CD is excellant!!

Where did the sound quality go to.

If this cd was made in the 1980's I'd say it was excellent. However, the sound quality of this cd is poor for it to be made in the 1990's. I highly doubt that 20 Bit technology (which was standard for the time) was used in creating this. I'm guessing the inferior 16 Bit techology was used. The bottom line is that the sound you'd expect to be flooding out of the speakers doesn't. That's why I have to give it 1 star.