How Kenny Rogers' Music Career Started

According to Rolling Stone, Larry from The Larry Kane Show was the inspiration behind Rogers changing his stage name from his real name to the more familiar, informal "Kenny." Kane told him: "You know you can't call yourself Kenneth Rogers," right before he was ready to walk on stage. The name stuck, and the newly christened Kenny Rogers was signed to the label Carlton Records not long after.

Throughout the early 1960s, Rogers experimented with a couple different genres, performing with the jazz group the Bobby Doyle Trio, before joining the folk-pop band the New Christy Minstrels in 1966, per Biography. After just one year with the Minstrels, he and fellow bandmates Mike Settle, Terry Williams, and Thelma Camacho left to form their own group, Kenny Rogers and The First Editions, with whom he released his second big hit, "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)." 

They went on to release several other hits, including "But You Know I Love You," "Something's Burning," "Reuben James," and Mel Tillis' "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town." The First Editions broke up in 1976, but by that point, Rogers was well on his way to stardom.

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