(Don Schlitz and Kenny Rogers) Songwriting can sometimes be a solitary task, or at most a collaboration of a handful of people. So when a song hits a nerve and resonates with others it can be a wondrous thing to watch it take off and have a life of its own. For the past 43 [...]

Johnny Cash cut it. Bobby Bare cut it. Under the name “Charlie Tango,” Conway Twitty’s son, Michael Twitty, cut it. Even the songwriter himself, Don Schlitz, cut it, as well as other people whose names are a distant Music Row memory. But when Kenny Rogers and producer Larry Butler finally recorded “The Gambler,” Schlitz was [...]