Country music icon Kenny Rogers has died

Country music icon Kenny Rogers has died. He was 81.

The family said it was planning a small private service at this time "out of concern for the national COVID-19 emergency", adding that they looked forward to celebrating Rogers' life publicly with his friends and fans at a later date.

In a career that spanned more than six decades, Rogers' famous songs included The Gambler, Lady, Islands In The Stream, Lucille, She Believes In Me, and Through the Years.

Rogers thrived as his career began in 1957 before he retired from touring in 2017 at age 79. Despite his crossover success, he always preferred to be thought of as a country singer.

He enjoyed an incredible career which spanned 60 years as he sold tens of millions of records, won three Grammys and was the star of TV movies based on The Gamble" and other songs, making him a superstar in the `70s and ´80s.

Rogers, with twenty-four number-one hits, was a Country Music Hall of Fame member, six-time CMA Awards winner, three-time GRAMMY Award winner, recipient of the CMA Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013, CMT Artist of a Lifetime Award honouree in 2015 and has been voted the Favourite Singer of All Time in a joint poll by readers of both USA Today and People.

Rogers invested his time and money in a lot of other endeavors over his career, including a passion for photography that led to several books, as well as an autobiography, Making It With Music. 

He had a chain of restaurants called Kenny Rogers Roasters, and was a partner behind a riverboat in Branson, Missouri. 

He was also involved in numerous charitable causes, among them the Red Cross and MusicCares, and was part of the all-star We are the World recording for famine relief.