Kenny Rogers, the country balladeer who etched himself forever on the world’s consciousness as “The Gambler,” the title and lead character of his best known song, died Friday night at the age of 81.

Mr. Rogers died of natural causes while under hospice care at his home in Sandy Springs, Ga., the Associated Press reported.

In his eight decades, Mr. Rogers built a career that stretched from the psychedelic tunes of the 1960s through the golden era of country music to TV movies and even the restaurant business, with his Kenny Rogers Roasters chicken and ribs chain.

Mr. Rogers was instantly recognizable for his white mane and beard. He acted in two dozen movies and television shows, according to film database IMDb—including five TV movies based on “The Gambler” and a 2009 cameo on the series “How I Met Your Mother.”

When the music industry lost interest in the aging singer, he took his music directly to his fans at baseball games and on television, building a following that lifted his single “Buy Me a Rose” to the top spot on Billboard’s country list in 2000, when Mr. Rogers was 61. At the time, it was the first No. 1 hit by a singer over 60 in the half century Billboard had been tracking the list.

READ ALSO:

Prince William Shock: How William Could Take Throne from Queen and Prince Charles in 2020

The hit came as Mr. Rogers was still bringing in more than $1 million a year from the six of his albums he owned and looking for ways to keep his library in demand.

“We needed new product to add validity to those records,” Mr. Rogers told The Wall Street Journal in an interview in 2000.

His hits—“Ruby,” “Lucille” and especially “The Gambler”—are much beloved multigenerational favorites and karaoke standbys around the world.

Mr. Rogers recalled his experience recording “The Gambler” with writer Don Schlitzin a 2018 interview with the Journal. Mr. Schlitz wrote the song after dropping out of college and working the graveyard shift as a computer operator in Nashville. He had never been on a train and didn’t play much poker but wrote most of the lyrics on a mile-long walk home.

It was in Mr. Rogers’s hands that the song took off. A relatively new solo artist at the time, Mr. Rogers told the Journal he thought of Ray Charles as he recorded his vocals. He said he didn’t know why his version did so well.

“Somewhere along the way, the song’s title became my nickname,” Mr. Rogers told the Journal. “People still call me ‘The Gambler.’ Funny thing is I’m not much of a poker player. Or a gambler.”

The song rose to No. 1 hit on Billboard’s country chart and hit No. 16 on the pop chart. Messrs. Rogers and Schlitz both won Grammy Awards.

“Kenny gave it life,” Mr. Schlitz told the Journal. “It’s his song now.”

wsj.com