Kenny Rogers, a prolific singer who played a major role in expanding the audience for country music in the 1970s and ’80s, died on Friday at his home in Sandy Springs, Ga. He was 81.

His death was announced by his publicist, Keith Hagan. Mr. Hagan did not specify the cause but said Mr. Rogers had been in hospice care. Mr. Rogers retired from performing for health reasons in 2018.

Singing in a husky voice that exuded sincerity and warmth, Mr. Rogers sold well over 100 million records in a career that spanned seven decades. He had 21 No. 1 country hits, including two — “Lady,”written and produced by Lionel Richie, and “Islands in the Stream,” composed by the Bee Gees and performed with Dolly Parton — that reached No. 1 on the pop chart as well.

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By the time he stopped performing, Mr. Rogers had placed more than 50 singles in the country Top 40, of which 20 also appeared in the pop Top 40. Long before the ascendancy of Garth Brooks and Shania Twain in the 1990s, he was among the first country artists to sell out arenas.

Kenneth Donald Rogers was born on Aug. 21, 1938, in Houston. The fourth of eight children, he grew up in San Felipe Courts, a public housing development in the city’s Fourth Ward.

His father, Edward Floyd Rogers, was a carpenter and amateur musician who struggled with alcohol. His mother, Lucille (Hester) Rogers, had only a third-grade education but held the family together, making ends meet by cleaning offices and working in a hospital.

Music was a refuge early on. “My dad wasn’t in the business, but he played fiddle,” Mr. Rogers recalled in a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone. “All of his brothers and sisters played some instrument, so we used to get in the cab of a pickup truck and ride up to Apple Springs, Texas, where all my aunts and uncles would get on the front porch and play music.

“I used to sing in the church choir and at school,” he continued, “but my interest actually started when I was 12 years old and went to see Ray Charles in concert.

“It was like an epiphany. People laughed at everything Ray said, they clapped for everything he sang. I thought, ‘Boy, who wouldn’t want to do that?’ I didn’t even know I could sing at the time. I just loved the honesty of his music.”

(More than three decades later, Mr. Rogers and Mr. Charles would be among the featured vocalists on the Grammy-winning all-star benefit recording “We Are the World.”)

While still in high school, Mr. Rogers formed a doo-wop group, the Scholars, in which he sang four-part harmonies and played guitar. After the group split up, he had a regional hit with “That Crazy Feeling,” issued by the independent Carlton label in 1958. The single’s popularity earned him an appearance on “American Bandstand.”

A decade later, Mr. Rogers and the First Edition were guests on prime-time variety shows like “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.” Thirty years on, their hit single “Just Dropped In” was used in a dream sequence in the Coen brothers’ movie “The Big Lebowski.”

Mr. Rogers was also a successful entrepreneur. His best-known enterprise was Kenny Rogers Roasters, a chain of chicken restaurants he opened with John Y. Brown Jr., the former governor of Kentucky and chief executive of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Opened in 1991, the chain — which was, among other things, the subject of a memorable episode of “Seinfeld” — closed in the United States 20 years later but has continued to prosper overseas, particularly in Southeast Asia.

Mr. Rogers was married five times. He is survived by his wife of 22 years, Wanda Miller, and the couple’s twin sons, Justin and Jordan, as well as a daughter, Carole Billingsley, from his marriage to Janice Gordon, and two other sons, Kenny Jr. (from his marriage to Margo Anderson) and Christopher (from his marriage to Marianne Gordon). He is also survived by two brothers, Roy and Randy; a sister, Sandy Rogers; and a number ofgrandchildren.

Credit: New York Times