Tyler Austenfeld
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The Gambler - Kenny Rogers
🕑 Added 2024-03-10 19:31:58 +0000 UTCToday we are going learn how to play "The Gambler" as performed by Kenny Rogers. "The Gambler" was written by Don Schlitz and besides Kenny there have been numerous other artists that have recorded the song, one of them was Bobby Bare who is one of my Grandmother's favorite singers. Still, none of them had more success than Kenny Rogers did with the song in 1978. Kenny's version actually made it to number 1 on the Billboard country charts and even saw success on the pop charts way before country music had gained the mainstream pop success that it has today. The track would go on to later earn him a grammy for best male vocal performance and his arrangement added some flair as well, included the guitar intro.
The original song is in the key of Eb, which is not easy for the ukulele and then it has a key change to the key of E which is a total nightmare for ukulele players. In an attempt to make it much more approachable and fun I will teach it in the key of D. If you want to match the original recording you can put a capo on the 1st fret and follow along exactly as I play it and it will go up a half step from D to Eb. If you want to add the key change I would suggest playing it without a capo and using all barre chords for the key of Eb and then just moving up all the barre chords for one fret in pitch and playing the progression the same. That way you won't have to commit yourself to learning the entire song over again.
sWIll
Changing chords in the middle of a measure
Knowing when to hol
