It’s almost a sure bet that Justin Sullivan’s photo is in homes of a few strangers.
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As a doppelgänger to country music icon Kenny Rogers, he’s been stopped for selfies and asked about his identity. Several years ago while on a ’70s Flower Power cruise, he was constantly asked, “Are you him?”
“I knew who they were assuming I was and I didn’t want to burst their bubble. They were thinking they were meeting Kenny Rogers and I didn’t want to burst their bubble. So I said ‘I’ll just go along with it.’
“And they didn’t really specify ‘are you Kenny Rogers?’ They said ‘are you him?’ And I do qualify as a him,” he chuckled. “So I said ‘yes, I am him.’ They would take selfies. I’m sure I’m refrigerator art in a lot of places where they just stuck it up on the refrigerator with a magnet.”
It was his uncanny resemblance to Rogers that eventually led the former homebuilder by trade and Gospel singer on the weekends to his current endeavor: traveling the country performing “An Evening with The Gambler: A Tribute to Kenny Rogers.” Sullivan will perform the concert at 5 p.m. Nov. 6 at the Des Plaines Theatre in Des Plaines.
“If you close your eyes it’s almost like going back in time and hearing it again for the first time live,” Sullivan said.
While Sullivan has only been performing as The Gambler for about two years, it was 25 years ago when he first realized he looked similar to Rogers. He and his wife of 41 years, Janet, were on a cruise. While in the Bahamas, they went to a Kenny Rogers Roasters restaurant.
“(We) walked in and the whole place just about fell apart. I didn’t know what was going on. And my wife looked at me, she looked past me and looked back at me and looked past me again and said ‘You know you look like Kenny Rogers?'” he said. “There was a picture behind me on the wall and she was the first one to notice the resemblance. And it seemed I grew more to look like him as I got older.”
It was during the early days of the pandemic that Sullivan was contacted by Adam Michaels of Avenue of the Stars Entertainment about performing as Rogers. He had seen Sullivan, who had performed and written Gospel music for years, in a Gospel concert online and suggested the tribute show.
“He made one phone call and ended up with three Grand Ole Opry players. It was huge that that just fell into my lap. I’ve got some heavyweight musicians playing with me …”
With Sullivan performing lead vocals, the band includes Glen Dickerson on lead electric guitar, Gregg Hutchins on percussion, Brenda Sheppard on keyboard, Robert Clark performing acoustic lead and rhythm, vocalist Gail Hutchins and bassist Steve Kennedy.
Sullivan, 62, said he never would have imagined when he watched Rogers as “The Gambler” Brady Hawkes on TV back in the ’80s that he would one day be performing the music of one of the best selling artists of all time. Ironically though, Janet had commented to him about six years ago that it would be interesting to tour the country performing Rogers’ music.
So far they are enjoying it, and the audiences are as well, he said. The songs performed span Rogers’ career.
“What a deep pool of material to pull from. The songs have meat and potatoes. They’re deep. If you start listening to the songs, he’s got ‘Reuben James.’ That’s a great love story if you listen … ‘Lady,’ that’s a great song to tell a woman how much you love her,” Sullivan said. “One of my favorite songs is one he did later in life called ‘Buy Me a Rose.’ Oh what a great song.”
Sullivan said it was Rogers’s view on what makes a good love song that connects people to the music.
“He said, ‘A great country love song says what a man should say, and a woman wants to hear.’ Isn’t that great? … That’s what’s in these songs,” Sullivan said. “That’s what’s so appealing, is that it’s just being honest … The whole theme that runs through the program that we do is love.”
‘An Evening with The Gambler: A Tribute to Kenny Rogers’
When: 5 p.m. Nov. 6
Where: Des Plaines Theatre, 1476 Miner St., Des Plaines
Tickets: $29-$59
Information: 224-354-2333; desplainestheatre.com
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Kathy Cichon is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.