January 31, 2025      —–     Chart #283

Hello Music Friends,

Hey folks, welcome to another edition of Chart of the Week. Friends, we are in the 1970’s again this week with a tune from the country charts. “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. 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.

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.

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em,

Know when to walk away, know when to run.

You never count your money, when you’re sittin’ at the table.

There’ll be time enough for countin’, when the dealin’s done.

Who doesn’t know that chorus? And of course, The Gambler became a series of five American Western television films starring Kenny Rogers as Brady Hawkes, a fictional old-west gambler. The character was inspired by Rogers’ hit single “The Gambler”.

There are five movies in the series:

Kenny Rogers as The Gambler (1980)

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)

Gambler V: Playing for Keeps (1994)

Pick up your guitar or sit down at your keyboard and imagine yourself as a card hustler in a western saloon. Look into the eyes of others around the table and ‘read ‘em”. Are you The Gambler? Do you know “when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em”?  Enjoy, my music friends.

Keep Rockin’,

Stan Bradshaw