SEARCHING FOR NEW MOVES

ATHENS, Ga. -- Years before most Southeast students were born, Kenny Rogers was a jazz musician, then a folk singer and finally the leader of a Top 10 rock 'n' roll band before settling in comfortably as one of the most revered entertainers in country music.

"One thing I've learned is that it's important to know when to move," Rogers said by telephone from his Athens, Ga., home.

Rogers, backed by a 20-piece orchestra, will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Show Me Center as a featured event of Southeast Missouri State University's Family Weekend.

Rogers grew up in the East Texas town of Piney Woods, which he says was "a little like `Deliverance' country." When his mother was ironing clothes, Hank Williams was on the radio.

Son Kenny played in a "stone cold country" band called Travis Henderson and the Playboys, but soon took a liking to jazz.

"None of them understood that at all," he says of his parents, "but it was important for me. It escalated my musical ability."

Rogers began his career as a jazz musician in a group led by Bobby Doyle. Later on, he was hired to play bass and sing for the New Christy Minstrels, one of the most popular groups involved in the folk music explosion of the late '50s and early '60s.

Then four of the New Christy Minstrels left the group to form the First Edition, a rock group that produced the hits "Ruby," "Tell It All Brother" and a fuzz-toned song that seemed to be about the state of mind created by hallucinogens.

"I Just Dropped In (to See What Condition My Condition Was in)" earned the band a reputation as a psychedelic group. "None of us were on drugs," Rogers says. "It was a song none of us could live up to."

Most of the groups in the '60s were composed of players who could sing. The First Edition, he said, "were singers who could play."

The First Edition had their own TV show -- "Rollin' on the River" -- for three years.

From there, Rogers returned to his country roots to overwhelming success: three Grammy Awards, 10 People's Choice awards, 18 American Music Awards, five Country Music Association Awards and eight Academy of Country Music Awards.

He has nine platinum albums, five of which are multi-platinum.

The hits include "Lucille, Islands in the Stream, "The Gambler" (which returned him to TV to play the role based on the song) "Coward of the County" and many more.

Today he commands huge sums to play in Las Vegas and Atlantic City and is backed by an orchestra instead of the standard country lineup.

Now it's hard to find new moves to make.

"Sometimes it's not bad to visit a place you've been," he says. "I don't need to be the biggest and the best anymore, and I don't need the loss of privacy."

His current project is to record an album of 30 love songs chosen by viewers of the QVC network. The album will be titled "Vote for Love."

But the veteran singer still yearns for wonderful new songs to add to his repertoire. On the radio these days, he hears Collin Raye singing them.

"Collin Raye does the most beautiful songs," he said. "I would give my right arm to be singing some of his songs."