Kenny Rogers' The Gambler from Capitol Records Nashville s storied catalog reissued on 180-gram vinyl. The album has been mastered for vinyl by Ron McMaster at Capitol Mastering and is packaged in true-to-original LP sleeves with restored artwork.

Released in 1979, Kenny Rogers' The Gambler was a pop crossover success, topping Billboard's Country Albums chart at #1 and reaching #12 on the Billboard 200. The album's smash hit ballad, She Believes In Me, topped Billboard's Country and Adult Contemporary Singles charts and peaked at #5 on the Hot 100. The album's title track won two GRAMMY Awards: Best Country Vocal Performance, Male and Best Country Song. The album is five-times Platinum-certified by the RIAA with U.S. sales totaling more than five million copies.

Kenny Rogers was already a star before he released THE GAMBLER in 1978. However, this was the album that established his legend, to the point that the white-bearded singer made several TV movies loosely based on this semi-concept album. In fact, this record's two hit singles are essentially the twin templates of the rest of his career. One, the title track, is a pure country story-song with a moral at the end; the other, the swelling "She Believes in Me," is a lush piece of easy-listening pop, with full orchestral accompaniment, that makes Ray Price's early-'70s singles sound like Jimmie Rodgers. Rogers would become a very rich man, indeed, spinning variations on those two styles in the following years, but THE GAMBLER remains one of his most cohesive and enjoyable albums.

Recorded at Jack Clement Recording Studio, Nashville, Tennessee.

• Genre: Country
• Format: Vinyl (Black)

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