Country legend Dolly Parton said her heart was broken as she paid tribute to Kenny Rogers who died has aged 81.

Rogers dominated the pop and country charts in the 1970s and 1980s with a string of sleekly tailored hits.

The three-time Grammy winner “passed away peacefully at home from natural causes under hospice care and surrounded by his family,” a family representative said in a statement.

Due to the national COVID-19 emergency, the family is planning a small private service  with a public memorial planned for a later date.

In a tearful tribute on Twitter, Rogers’ duet partner clutched a photo of the pair and said she had loved Kenny with all her heart.

“We all know that Kenny is in a better place than we are today, but I’m sure he’s going to be talking to God sometime today,” said 74-year-old Parton.

“He’s going to be asking Him to spread some light on the darkness that’s going on here. I loved Kenny with all my heart.

My heart is broken, a big old chunk of it has gone with him today.”

You never know how much you love somebody until they’re gone. I’ve had so many wonderful years and wonderful times with my friend Kenny, but above all the music and the success I loved him as a wonderful man and a true friend. pic.twitter.com/hIQLIvt8pr

— Dolly Parton (@DollyParton) March 21, 2020

Legends including Reba McEntire and country star Blake Shelton joined the flow of tributes for their country compatriot.

“Kenny, Go rest high on that mountain,” McEntire wrote on Instagram.

“Please tell mama and daddy hi for me. Thank you for your friendship and your love. We are going to miss you but we are so happy you’re singing with the Angels in heaven. Can’t wait to see you again one of these days. Rest in peace my friend.”

Kenny Rogers’ appealing, sometimes gritty voice propelled 20 solo 45s to No. 1 on the country charts from 1977-87.

Two of them, his 1980 reading of Lionel Richie’s “Lady” and his 1983 collaboration with Dolly Parton “Islands in the Stream” (penned by the Bee Gees), also topped the pop lists.

He worked profitably with a number of other female vocalists, including Dottie West, Sheena Easton, Kim Carnes and Anne Murray.

Rogers parlayed his music success into a successful side career as an actor. His 1978 country chart-topper “The Gambler” spawned five popular TV movies, while some of his other hits also inspired small-screen features.

Rogers was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Country Music Assn. the same year.

Born and raised in Houston, he was the fourth of eight children in a poor family. He took to the guitar as an adolescent, and would sometimes perform with another aspiring local musician and future star, Mickey Gilley.

His early professional career was stylistically eclectic. While in high school, he formed a rockabilly group, the Scholars, who recorded for Carlton Records, a local label. After a brief stint at the University of Houston, he played bass with the jazz groups of Bobby Doyle and Kirby Stone.

After moving to Los Angeles in 1966, he joined the folk-pop unit the New Christy Minstrels, a group that also numbered such performers as Carnes, the Byrds’ Gene Clark, “Eve of Destruction” vocalist Barry McGuire and the Lovin’ Spoonful’s Jerry Yester among its members at one time or another.

A big tennis fan, Kenny Rogers hung out with with Evonne Goolagong Cawley at the 2015 Australian Open. Photo: Getty

He notched five more No. 1 solo country singles by the end of the 1970s. The biggest of these were the Grammy-winning “The Gambler” (also No. 16 pop in 1978) and Rogers’ biggest hit, the backwoods narrative “Coward of the County” (also No. 3 pop in 1979). They pushed the albums “The Gambler” and “Kenny” to No. 12 and No. 5, respectively, on the pop album charts. Each inspired a popular TV movie; Rogers would portray Brady Hawkes, protagonist of “The Gambler,” in a series of telepics that ran through 1994.

On the heels of a No. 1 greatest hits set in 1980, Rogers’ hits of the decade for Liberty and RCA found him moving increasingly into pop terrain and focusing on romantic balladry.

“Lady” and “Islands in the Stream” (the latter one of many duets with frequent partner Parton) solidified his standing as country’s biggest crossover attraction; his rendering of Bob Seger’s “We’ve Got Tonight” with Sheena Easton ruled the country chart and rose to No. 6 on the pop chart. In all, he recorded 23 top-10 country hits during the decade, five of which crossed to the pop side.

He issued a memoir, “Luck or Something Like It,” in 2012, and a novel, “What Are the Chances,” in 2013. That same year, he was the recipient of the CMA Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award. He received a similar honour from CMT with its Artist of a Lifetime Award in 2015.

Always active on the road, Rogers announced his retirement in September 2015, not long after a widely aired commercial for an insurance company saw him reprising “The Gambler” for comedic effect.

Married five times, Rogers is survived by his last wife Wanda and five children.

Kenny Rogers at the Tamworth Country Music festival in 2011.

-with AAP