Kenny Rogers to perform Friday at H. Ric Luhrs Performing Arts Center

Kenny Rogers knows he's been lucky.

At age 73, the country-pop icon with his signature raspy voice has spent more than 50 years in an impressive, musical genre-bending career.


And the man who made silver hair and facial hair a look said he's been grateful for every moment of it.

Rogers will return to the H. Ric Luhrs Performing Arts Center at Shippensburg University on Friday, June 15, the same venue he sold out during his successful Christmas & Hits Tour in 2009. This week's show begins at 8 p.m.

"This past year we've done 26 shows in the Northeast and we didn't see one flake of snow," Rogers said during a telephone interview from his Atlanta home. "And the year before we were snowed out of two cities. I don't know which one I like best because one of the reasons we love the Christmas tour is that it gives us from Atlanta the chance to enjoy the snow a little bit. Enjoy is one thing and getting blocked in is something else."

Although Christmas is still months away, Rogers has actually been reflecting about God as he has been touring with his first gospel album, "The Love of God."

Rogers said for 20 years he's had people wanting him to do a gospel album.

"I think there's a demand for this, but I've always been very hesitant because I've never been overtly religious, but I have always been very spiritual," he said. "So I didn't want to do a religious album. I can't proselytize. I can't say 'You need to be with God.' I can't do that. But I can say if this song makes you feel better, use it."

The album features such classics as "I'll Fly Away" with The Whites, the Michael W. Smith-penned "Grace,"  "The Rock of Your Love" written by Vince Gill, and the Michael McDonald and Beth Nielsen Chapman-written "Peace."

Rogers said he picked songs that resonated with him personally.

"What I did was I went back to songs I was raised on as a kid, that I think kinda shaped me and my personality," said the Houston-born Rogers. "I always said I got my sense of humor from my dad, but I got my sense of values from my mom; because I went to church three times a week when I was a kid. I think when I die I would have put in the number of days necessary."

Even as a child, music was such a part of Rogers' upbringing.

"My dad played fiddle and all the brothers and sisters of his played instruments, and we'd jump in the back of an old pickup truck — this was way before seat belts — and we would ride up to East Texas. And all the kids would sit in the front yard and Dad and all his brothers and sisters would play gospel music. They'd play 'Sweet By and By,' 'May the Circle Be Unbroken,' and that's kinda where I learned all of this stuff." 

Rogers said he hopes people take away from "The Love of God," "that there's music that's designed not to tell you what to do but inspire you to do it."

The music, it seems, has not only resonated with Rogers but with his fans, including those in hospice care.

"I can't tell you how many people who have been really, really ill and have heard that album and said 'You know what? I just felt better after I listened to it.'"

The album is exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel. Rogers said the restaurant's customers were exactly the market base for this specific album. Rogers, who founded his own record company, Dreamcatcher Entertainment in 1999, also released his last album, "Kenny Rogers: The First 50 Years" at Cracker Barrel.

In true Rogers style, the 12-track "The First 50 Years" included not only fan favorites but new songs as well, showing that he's constantly evolving.

His staying power was no more evident than in 2000 with the release of "Buy Me a Rose," which led the then-61-year-old Rogers to be the oldest artist in chart history to have a No. 1 hit.