Focal Point: Rogers makes creative statement with photo exhibit

Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001 | 8:44 a.m.

Kenny Rogers has good reason to be excited these days.

After his 1999 CD "She Rides Wild Horses" produced two country music hit singles, the 63-year-old returned last year with "There You Go Again," which earned him another spot on the Billboard charts.

He's since been drawing new fans to his concerts while reeling back in older listeners who 20 years ago fell in love with his heartfelt ballads, such as "Lady" and "Love the World Away." This weekend Rogers will display yet another of his creative outlets: photography.

On Friday "Songs Without Sounds: The Photography of Kenny Rogers" will premiere at Entertainment Galleries at the Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian. The exhibit continues through Oct. 14.

The collection of black-and-white photographs, which capture regal American landscapes, celebrity personalities and country superstars old and new has been impressing fans and collectors, who have spent up to $1,550 apiece for the signed limited-edition photographs.

"It's kind of a new thing," Rogers said recently via the telephone from his home in Athens, Ga. "I've never sold photos before."

"I'm kind of excited," he added humbly.

And so are representatives from Entertainment Galleries, where seven of the photographs have been on display at the gallery.

"They're already selling and we don't even have the show going (yet)," Yona Montero, sales director at Entertainment Galleries, said last week.

"(The fans) love them," she added.

Rogers, who is performing today through Saturday at the Las Vegas Hilton, will be at Friday's opening of the photo exhibit.

Saturday he will sign copies of two of his three photography books, "Your Friends and Mine" (Little, Brown, 1987) and "This Is My Country" (Dreamcatcher Entertainment, 2001) at Jack Gallery at Mandalay Bay. Though most people are familiar with Rogers as an actor, former restauranteur (the defunct Kenny Rogers Roasters chain) and singer who has been entertaining audiences for decades, Rogers' interest in photography extends back to his early 20s. He studied commercial art in college.

Twenty years ago Rogers pursued that interest while on tour with his music; he later studied with John Sexton, a former assistant to American scenic photographer Ansel Adams. More recently Rogers has studied with portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh.

"I think we all need multiple passions in our life," Rogers said. "When music is 95 percent (of your life) and that goes, 95 percent of your life goes."

And with radio stations gearing their programming toward younger audiences, even Rogers, a four-time Grammy Award winner, had little commercial success during the early 1990s with his music career.

"Radio has a more predetermined concept of what they were going to play," Rogers said. "I didn't fall into that."

But, he added, "I didn't take it personally."

Instead, in 1998 he and his longtime partner in the music industry, Jim Mazza, founded Dreamcatcher Entertainment Inc., which handles Dreamcatcher Records, as well as divisions concentrating on artist management and film and television production.

Under Dreamcatcher Records, Rogers released "She Rides Wild Horses" which features "The Greatest," a baseball-themed song about perseverance, and the 1999 No. 1 country hit "Buy Me a Rose," a ballad about long-lasting love.

The album went platinum and "Buy Me a Rose" was nominated last year by the Country Music Association for single of the year. Executives from CBS built an entire episode of its weekly drama, "Touched By an Angel," around from the song. The show guest-starred Rogers and was broadcast in February 2000.

"Beautiful (All That You Could Be)," a single from "There You Go Again," is fluctuating on Billboard's Country Singles chart.

The radio air-play is a relief to Rogers, who said, "Nothing stifles creativity like a lack of outlet."

Between recording and touring, Rogers maintained his interest in photography, taking his large-format cameras (which use larger negatives) with him on tour.

Rogers said that he began to realize that his photographs were "really good." But, he added, "I realized I had no outlet for them."

So he published "Kenny Rogers' America" (Little, Brown, 1986), a collection of urban and rural American landscapes, that includes a ghostly impression of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., scenes from Niagra Falls and Canyon De Chelly National Monument in Chinle, Ariz.

"Most of that stuff I took on tour," Rogers said. "I'm always pulling over to take pictures ... The best light is between 4 and 6 (p.m.) so I would literally shoot on the way to the concerts.

"I almost missed one of my shows one night," he added with a laugh.

In July Rogers photographed Masai warriors and other images of Africa while on safari with family and friends. But the experience of looking at America through a lens proved invaluable for Rogers, who said that although he traveled regularly across the country, he "never really saw it."

"I tend to go to all these wild and bizarre places to take pictures," Rogers said. "But there are some wild and bizarre places in America ... Grand Teton (National Park in Wyoming), Sedona, (Ariz.), Yellowstone (National Park in Wyoming).

"I also learned really just how diverse (the country) is," he added. "We were in Oregon the other day, driving back from somewhere, it was just breathtaking, coming out of the mountains ... I closed my eyes and when I opened my eyes it was desert."

Though many fans are still unaware of the singer's talent with the camera, others have been following his career since he published "Kenny Rogers' America," which is now out of print.

"We've been watching (Rogers') photography career for some time," said Keith Tomaszewsky, president of the S2 Art Group Ltd., a publisher and distributor in New York known for its fine-art lithographs. "He really understands what he's seeing. The compositions are all strong. He knows what he's doing.

"There's a sense of Americana that comes through in all of his work," Tomaszewsy said. "When you look at his photographs, it's images of America we all know but he makes it very comfortable for us."

S2 Art Group is the exclusive worldwide art dealer for Rogers' photographs. Eventually, the photographs will be shown at other galleries throughout the United States, Tomaszewsky said.

The book "Your Friends and Mine" is available through Rogers' website, kennyrogers.com.

"This Is My Country," which will be on sale at Jack Gallery, features photographs of some of the biggest country artists.

The photographs that were taken backstage at the Country Music Awards capture the rich personalities of country musicians, such as Charlie Pride, Bill Monroe, Willie Nelson, Chet Atkins, Dwight Yoakam and the late Tammy Wynette and Minnie Pearl, as well as such newer artists as Faith Hill.

"These are rare and wonderful pictures," Rogers said. "I'm really happy with them."

Onstage at the Las Vegas Hilton, Rogers said he will be performing a blend of the old and new songs.

"I do a lot of the old stuff because I think you have an obligation," Rogers said. "I do songs from the new albums to show where I am now."

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