The First Edition

Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, until 1970 billed as the First Edition, were an American band. The band's style was difficult to singularly classify, as it incorporated elements of country, rock and psychedelic pop. Its stalwart members were Kenny Rogers (lead vocals and bass guitar), Mickey Jones (drums and percussion) and Terry Williams (guitar and vocals). The band formed in 1967, with folk musician Mike Settle (guitar and backing vocals) and the operatically trained Thelma Camacho (lead vocals) completing the lineup.As the counterculture of the 1960s was developing, the First Edition signed with Reprise Records in 1967 and had their first big hit in early 1968 with the psychedelic single "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" (US No. 5). After other chart hits, "But You Know I Love You" (US No. 19) and "Tell It All Brother" (US No. 17), the group, newly billed as "Kenny Rogers and the First Edition", once again hit the top ten, this time in 1969 with the topical "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town" (US No. 6, UK No.2).For the next six years, the First Edition enjoyed worldwide success. By the mid-1970s, frontman Kenny Rogers had embarked on a solo music career, becoming one of the top-selling country artists of all time.Kenny Rogers and the First Edition were mostly made up of former members of the New Christy Minstrels who felt creatively stifled. The exception was Mickey Jones, who had been part of Bob Dylan's backing group on his first electric world tour. In 1967, with the help of Terry Williams' mother, who worked for producer and executive Jimmy Bowen, they signed with Reprise and recorded their first single together, "I Found a Reason", which had minor sales. Settle had first come up with the idea of forming the band as his work took on the characteristics of rock. Over the previous seven years, Settle had been writing decidedly more folk-oriented songs, most notably the oft-covered "Sing Hallelujah".It was their follow-up (sung by Rogers), the psychedelic single "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)", that first got notice. The single, with an arrangement by their producer, Mike Post, had Glen Campbell playing the backward guitar intro and Mike Deasy providing various psychedelic sounds. It became a hit early in 1968, climbing to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Terry Williams played the solo that later led Jimi Hendrix to tell Rogers that it was his favorite record. The group's next three single releases failed commercially, as did their second album. The 1968 release "But You Know I Love You" (composed by Settle) possessed a distinctive brass-tinged country-folk sound, broadening their fan base. In the group's rendition on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour that aired on 8 December 1968, the audience was unwittingly fooled into applauding too soon, right after the false ending but well before the real ending. The record peaked at No. 19 on the Hot 100 just under a year after "Just Dropped In" was at its Billboard summit.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.