Love Will Turn You Around
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Album Summary
Back in 1982, Kenny Rogers was riding higher than a Georgia pine, and 'Love Will Turn You Around' on Liberty Records was proof positive that the man was untouchable. Produced by David Malloy, this album arrived as the soundtrack companion to the motion picture 'Six Pack,' a film in which Rogers himself stepped in front of the camera alongside a cast of young co-stars. The crown jewel of the project was the title track, co-written by the incomparable Lionel Richie, a collaboration that brought together two of the era's most commercially magnetic forces and gave the album an emotional anchor that was impossible to ignore. The production carried all the hallmarks of Rogers' signature country-pop crossover style — lush, radio-ready, and built for a mainstream audience that stretched far beyond the traditional country faithful.
Reception
- The title track 'Love Will Turn You Around' climbed to number one on the Billboard Country Singles chart and made a powerful move onto the Adult Contemporary chart as well, confirming once again that Kenny Rogers had a rare gift for reaching ears across every format on the dial.
- The album posted strong numbers on the Billboard Country Albums chart, propelled by the dual engine of Rogers' enormous mainstream visibility and the promotional momentum generated by the 'Six Pack' film release.
- Critical reception landed somewhere in the middle of the road — admirers pointed to the polished, confident production as a strength, while detractors felt the album tilted so far toward pop sensibility that it left some of country music's rougher, more soulful edges behind.
Significance
- This album stands as one of the purest distillations of the country-pop crossover movement that defined the early 1980s, with Rogers functioning as its most commercially visible standard-bearer, pulling new listeners into the country tent from pop and adult contemporary audiences alike.
- The Lionel Richie co-written title track represents a landmark moment of creative bridge-building between the country and R&B-pop songwriting worlds, a reminder that great music has never cared much about genre boundaries.
- The album's deep ties to a major motion picture starring Rogers himself illustrated how the biggest country artists of the era were expanding beyond the recording studio and into film and multimedia, staking out cultural territory that the genre had never fully claimed before.
Tracklist
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A1 Love Will Turn You Around (Theme From The Motion Picture "Six Pack") —
3:36
-
A2 A Love Song 97
3:14
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A3 Fighting Fire With Fire —
2:29
-
A4 Maybe You Should Know 132
2:36
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A5 Somewhere Between Lovers And Friends 90
2:53
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B1 Take This Heart 115
3:19
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B2 If You Can Lie A Little Bit 128
3:34
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B3 I'll Take Care Of You 137
2:32
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B4 The Fool In Me 183
4:03
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B5 I Want A Son 131
3:09
Artist Details
Kenny Rogers, born in Houston, Texas in 1938, came up through the jazz and rock worlds before finding his true calling as one of the defining voices of country-pop crossover music, first making waves with the New Christy Minstrels and The First Edition before launching a solo career in the late 1970s that turned him into an absolute juggernaut. With that warm, weathered baritone wrapping around story-songs like The Gambler, Lucille, and Lady, Rogers had a gift for spinning a narrative that could pull at the heartstrings of a truck driver and a suburban housewife all at the same time, making him one of the best-selling artists of his era with over 165 million records sold worldwide. He stands as a cornerstone of the countrypolitan sound, a man who helped tear down the walls between Nashville and pop radio and proved that a good story told with soul could move mountains — and chart positions.
