His voice is gruff and lonesome—that is, until Parton joins in on the next verse: “You do something to me that I can’t explain / Hold me closer and I feel no pain / Every beat of my heart / We got something going on.” Their harmony is otherworldly, an alloy of fierce and soft. Copyright © 2020 Hung Medien. Their chemistry is stable, not volatile.
What follows is a monumental chorus that millions of YouTube plays can’t erode. At the same time, “Islands in the Stream” marked the peak of country’s love affair with pop in the ’80s, a shotgun marriage that wouldn’t be renewed until Garth Brooks and Shania Twain led a new generation of arena-packing country artists a decade later. The ’80s fostered every kind of musical crossover, from Eddie Van Halen shredding with Michael Jackson to Aerosmith jousting with Run-DMC. Rogers and Parton went on to record a Christmas album together, and had an additional hit with their 1985 duet "Real Love". And in doing so, it gave two country veterans a chance to reinvent the alchemy of the duet. The song is sung in C major moderate 44 time, with Rogers and Parton alternating lead vocals. She was in Los Angeles, where Rogers and Gibb were recording. Few singers in any genre are as overwhelmingly distinct as Rogers and Parton. The song went to No. It was released in August 1983 as the first single from Rogers's album Eyes That See in the Dark.Named after the Ernest Hemingway novel, it was originally written for Marvin Gaye in an R&B style, only later to be changed for the Kenny Rogers album.
Since then it has also sold 245,577 digital copies in the UK as of July 2014. Design © 2003-2020 eMedia Jungen. Her most downloaded songs in the UK revealed", Austriancharts.at – Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton – Islands in the Stream", Nederlandse Top 40 – Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton", Charts.nz – Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton – Islands in the Stream", Norwegiancharts.com – Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton – Islands in the Stream", Swedishcharts.com – Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton – Islands in the Stream", "Kenny Rogers Chart History (Hot Country Songs)", "Kenny Rogers Chart History (Adult Contemporary)", Offiziellecharts.de – Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton – Islands in the Stream", David Kent's "Australian Chart Book 1970-1992", "Item Display - RPM - Library and Archives Canada", "Top 100 Hits of 1984/Top 100 Songs of 1984", "Billboard Hot 100 60th Anniversary Interactive Chart", "ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 2020 Singles", Australian Recording Industry Association, "Canadian single certifications – Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton – Islands in the Stream", "British single certifications – Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers – Islands in the Stream", "American single certifications – Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton – Islands in the Stream", "Captain Tom Moore claims Number 1 victory on the Official Chart", "Official Scottish Singles Sales Chart Top 100", In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad), I Will Always Love You and Other Greatest Hits, Just Because I'm a Woman: Songs of Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton discography, Daytime Friends – The Very Best of Kenny Rogers, Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), The Vows Go Unbroken (Always True to You), John Farnham & Tom Jones – Together in Concert, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Islands_in_the_Stream_(song)&oldid=984487818, Billboard Adult Contemporary number-one singles, Billboard Hot Country Songs number-one singles, RPM Adult Contemporary number-one singles, Song recordings produced by Albhy Galuten, Singlechart usages for Billboardcountrysongs, Singlechart usages for Billboardadultcontemporary, Certification Table Entry usages for Australia, Pages using certification Table Entry with streaming figures, Certification Table Entry usages for Canada, Pages using certification Table Entry with shipments figures, Certification Table Entry usages for United Kingdom, Certification Table Entry usages for United States, Pages using certification Table Entry with shipments footnote, Pages using certification Table Entry with streaming footnote, Pages using infobox song with unknown parameters, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, "Islands in the Stream" (music video) – 4:21, "(Barry) Islands in the Stream" (full-length video) – 8:56, "(Barry) Islands in the Stream" (making of the video) – 14:30, This page was last edited on 20 October 2020, at 10:00. The Texas drawl of Rogers and the Tennessee twang of Parton lend warmth and raw yearning to an otherwise twinkly sonic backdrop. All rights reserved. It also made Sir Tom Jones, at the age of 68, the oldest person to have a UK number one song, until he was beaten in 2020 by Captain Tom Moore for his involvement in "You'll Never Walk Alone" at the age of 99.[36]. “I’ve lived through earthquakes in California, twisters in Kansas, and hurricanes in Georgia, but nothing prepared me for working with Dolly,” Rogers wrote in his memoir—although the most remarkable thing about “Islands in the Stream” isn’t its force, but its restraint. “I grew up with Sam Cooke and Ray Charles and Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters,” he told the music journalist John Tobler in 1989.
“Islands in the Stream,” by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, is more than a timeless, genre-spanning love song that tends to surface around 1 a.m. at karaoke night. But when the chart-topping duet appeared on his 1983 album Eyes That See in the Dark—released the day after his 45th birthday—it defied all odds to become a hit. [3] After it became available for digital download, it has also sold a further 834,000 digital copies in the US as of January 2019.[5].
Kenny Rogers was the iconic country music singer ... Parton for the upbeat duet “Islands in the Stream.” Rogers duetted with other women over the years, recording hits with Dottie West… For other uses, see, Johnny Walker interview with Robin and Barry Gibb BBC Radio 2 30 August 2010 17:00, Recording Industry Association of America, "Robin Gibb, RIP: Hear the Bee Gee's Legacy in 15 Tracks", "American single certifications – Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton – Islands in the Stream", "Top 30 Digital Singles: January 15, 2019", "Country Bites News snippets June 30 - July 6, 2014", "Happy Birthday Dolly Parton! [34] The chorus of Pras' 1998 hit "Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are)", which in turn is a reworking of the original Rogers and Parton release, replaces the final chorus in the studio recording. Sony Music, the current owner of RCA Nashville, protected copyrights for this recording, and is digitally available only in various compilations from Sony Music, especially that of Dolly Parton. The live version of the song appears on their Love Songs compilation. The song reached a peak of No. The video was filmed in Barry Island, Las Vegas and the Nevada desert, with both Gibb and Jones appearing in the video alongside Jones and Brydon. That's The Way It Could Have Been (Kenny Rogers & Dottie West) The Best Of Me (Kenny Rogers feat. In a video posted to Twitter on Saturday, Parton had this to say of her late duet partner: “I loved Kenny with all my heart. Their version features a key change from C major to A-flat major. Nigel Lythgoe also makes a cameo appearance as a talent competition judge. The song is escapist. 7 in the UK singles chart in 1983. In Australia the song was number one for one week in December 1983 and became one of the highest selling singles of 1984.
[6] As of 2017 it has racked up 287,200 downloads and 4.83 million streams in the UK.[7]. Forty-five minutes after Gibb’s epiphany, Parton walked through the door of the studio and got down to business. “My heart is with R&B music.” Gibb originally wrote “Islands in the Stream” with Diana Ross in mind, but the song ended up with Rogers and Parton. On March 8, 2009, Welsh actors Ruth Jones and Rob Brydon, in character as Vanessa Jenkins and Bryn West from the hit BBC sitcom Gavin & Stacey, released a version of the song as a single for Comic Relief. In 1983, the hit duet was a turning point in the friendship between the two stars. I was just another guest in the mix of her very busy schedule.” But when Rogers tapped Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees in 1983 to produce his next album, Gibb had a flash of inspiration. I was asked to perform on her television show in Nashville, simply called Dolly,” Rogers wrote in his 2012 memoir, Luck or Something Like It.
Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com. Parton is the former; Rogers is the latter. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, also topping the Country and Adult Contemporary listings. Ironically, it took a disco icon to bring the two country legends together in the studio. In April 2008, South Bend, Indiana, radio station WZOW played the song continuously for several days on end,[8] a stunt drawing attention to the station's format change from alternative rock to adult contemporary. [4], It knocked Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" out of No.
A studio version was recorded for their 2001 retrospective Their Greatest Hits: The Record, which has since featured on the 2004 Number Ones and on the 2010 Mythology box set. “Islands in the Stream,” though, didn’t shove genres together; it sought the sweet spot between them. “Islands in the Stream” would prove to be Rogers’s last major pop triumph. As fate would have it, Parton wasn’t ensconced in Nashville.
This article is about the song. ^shipments figures based on certification alonesales+streaming figures based on certification alone. We want to hear what you think about this article. "Islands in the Stream" is a song written by the Bee Gees and sung by American country music artists Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. “If I’m going to lose it, I want to lose it with Dolly.” That’s the power of “Islands in the Stream.” It’s an anthem to losing oneself in partnership, to dissolving the boundaries between souls—and to finding one’s voice in the voice of another. Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers performing in Toronto in 1986.
1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Rogers and Parton would go on to collaborate on numerous television specials and world tours, not to mention a second duet, “Real Love.” Middle-aged, gray-bearded, and paunchy, Rogers became an unlikely sex symbol—a tender yet rugged silver fox in the image-conscious era of MTV. [3] In 2005 the song topped CMT's poll of the best country duets of all time; Parton and Rogers reunited to perform the song on the CMT special. “There is always the danger of being so closely associated with someone that you lose your own identity,” Rogers wrote of his time with Parton. By 1983, the last thing on his radar was a team-up with Dolly Parton.