Kenny Rogers and Dottie West...

When I was very young, my parents had a copy of Kenny Rogers' and Dottie West's 1978 album, Ev'ry Time Two Fools Collide.  That album was released in 1978 and is pretty hard to find these days.  I used to listen to it a lot because my parents played it a lot... and it was actually a very good album.  In the 70s and early 80s, Kenny Rogers was the shit.  And I'm sure he did a lot for the late Dottie West, who endured a lot of tragedies in her too brief life and died in 1991 in a car accident.  She was a marvelously beautiful woman with a whisky soaked voice and she and Kenny kicked ass.

I was six years old in 1978 and my parents played this on 8 track all the time.  As I got older, I would sneak listening to it on my dad's dinosaur of a stereo.  I really like country music from the late 70s and early 80s... as well as the even more classic stuff.  I don't like today's pop country, because it has the same problem a lot of today's pop music has.  There's no soul... and little talent.  It's mostly what you look like that gets you on the radio.  This album is a big classic, though... and I would totally buy it if I could find the 1978 version today.

I love their song, "Ev'ry Time Two Fools Collide".  I would love to find someone who could sing this with me and do it justice.

I also love the other "hits" from that album...

The very sexy "Anyone Who Isn't Me Tonight"...

Cutesy Sonny and Cher cover...

A lovely rendition of "Til I Can Make It On My Own", a song Tammy Wynette also sang.

Kenny and Dottie singing "We Love Each Other" and sounding very convincing.

And one of my personal favorites, "That's the Way It Should Have Been."



"What Are We Doing In Love"... is very dated today.



Beautiful song, "What's Wrong With Us Today"...



They even covered Bread's "Baby, I'm a Want You".  I never cared much for this song.

They did another song, a cover of Kris Kristofferson's "The Loving Gift", which is just beautiful.



I look at Dottie West and see a woman who was made to wear Bob Mackie's clothes.

My parents went to see Kenny Rogers in the 80s and Dolly Parton was supposed to join him, but had to cancel at the last minute.  Dottie West stepped in.  A lot of people wanted their money back, but my parents loved the show.  Dottie was a true performer and they put on a great performance together.

I miss the days of duets like these... Yes, I know I'm OLD.

Here's Johnny Cash and June Carter singing "The Loving Gift".  It's not quite the same.  They do it in a jaunty uptempo style, while Dottie and Kenny were more earnest.  I like Dottie's and Kenny's version much better.  But Johnny and June obviously did the more popular rendition.

Cash and Carter's

Here's a totally yucky song from the early 80s called "I Couldn't Say No".  It's by Carlene Carter and Robert Ellis Orall.  Carlene Carter is June Carter's daughter and this was a bit of a one hit wonder.

I remember Rosanne Cash, Johnny Cash's daughter, also had a hit around the same time-- perhaps a year or two beforehand.

It was called "Seven Year Ache".  I think I like Rosanne's song better than Carlene's.

It's interesting to note that Johnny Cash and my husband have a few things in common.  They were both from Arkansas.  My husband was actually born in Missouri, because there was no hospital in the Arkansas town where his parents lived at the time.  They were both military-- Cash was in the Air Force and my husband is Army.  They both married women from Texas the first time and women from Virginia the second time.  And they both had ties to San Antonio and Memphis.  My husband's mom lives in San Antonio and we're moving there soon.  His dad lives in Memphis.  Cash married his first wife in San Antonio; that was where she was from.  After they married, they lived in Memphis.  My husband lived there for awhile, too.

That's about all they have in common, though.  My husband can't carry a tune in a bucket... but he does have a spunky wife who puts on a show.